Robert Buckland: The commission will look at a range of issues. I think I have made my position about the independence of the judiciary and the integrity of the appointments process very clear. It is nobody’s wish, I think on any side of this House, to see political influence being brought to bear on the appointment of judges. It is important to remember that we do not have a constitutional court, or a US-style system in this country and it is not something I would wish to see replicated here.

Robert Buckland: I congratulate my hon. Friend on his recent honour, which is thoroughly deserved after a lifetime in public service, both here and in other elected Assemblies. His suggestions are well made. I am already having a number of discussions with ministerial colleagues and thinking very deeply about the range of expertise and individuals that we need, and the diversity of that panel, so that we make sure that the commission, or the committee, is in the best possible place to gather evidence and come up with measured, sensible reforms.

John Whittingdale: I thank my hon. Friend, and I thank the Minister of State, Ministry of Justice, my hon. and learned Friend the Member for South East Cambridgeshire (Lucy Frazer), for the work that she has done in this area. Does he share my view of how important it is that court proceedings are properly reported by trained journalists so that justice can be seen to be done? Will he continue to work with the Society of Editors, the News Media Association and others to see what further measures can be taken to achieve that?

Tan Dhesi: For some weird, inexplicable reason, the Government have a dangerous and flawed obsession with handing huge contracts to private firms to run our prisons. I appreciate that the Secretary of State may not heed my call for prisons to be returned to public ownership, but will he at the very least implement a moratorium on private prisons until an independent review has ascertained whether they are indeed more violent?

Alan Brown: First, may I ask what impact assessment has been undertaken on the effect of losing connectivity between Scotland and various UK regions if Flybe does go down? How many of these routes have been assessed as lifeline routes? What assessment have his Government made of the Flybe Heathrow slots if Flybe does not operate and of what that would mean for future connectivity? We know that Flybe operates outwith ATOL—the Air Travel Organiser’s Licence scheme—so what consumer protections are available for customers booking with these types of carriers? What changes do the Government propose to bring in to protect consumers? Where are we on the proposed legislation changes promised after the collapse of Monarch and then Thomas Cook? Given that there was no Government intervention previously, why are they now looking at doing something—we do support Flybe continuing to operate? Is that not firm proof that the Government need a comprehensive plan, rather than reacting with short-term fixes? What additional supports will the UK Government bring forward across the entire sector that they have ignored to date?
Will the Minister confirm that the Government do not ring-fence APD moneys for tackling climate change? What message does talk of delaying revenues or reducing APD send out about the Government’s willingness to tackle climate change?
What is the deadline for Government action, because this is going to create further market uncertainty and will hit future bookings for Flybe?

Paul Maynard: Let me start by reinforcing the fact that Flybe remains a going concern; flights continue to take off and land, and passengers should go to the airport.
I very much take the hon. Gentleman’s point about the importance of Flybe, not just to the regions of England but to the nation of Scotland and, not least, the oil and gas sector out of Aberdeen—I genuinely understand that. He makes an observation about PSO flights, both within Scotland and to London. We are looking at PSO flights policy more widely and whether we need to consider further options.
The hon. Gentleman mentioned slots at Heathrow, and he will be aware that slots are a matter for the independent ACL—Airport Coordination Limited—body. No decisions have been taken on the use of further slots at Heathrow in this regard.
The hon. Gentleman mentions protection for consumers. Those who are on a package are covered by ATOL, but, as he will know, there is separate travel insurance and those who pay by credit card will have consumer protections. We continue to review consumer protection more widely within the travel sector. He will also know that in the Queen’s Speech we announced the airline insolvency Bill, which will come forward shortly.
Once again, I reiterate that I cannot offer the running commentary the hon. Gentleman looks for on what is occurring within government.

Paul Holmes: First, let me thank the Minister for keeping me informed of developments as they have gone on and reassure him that, despite the shadow Secretary of State’s characterisation, it is not the 15% of richest people in my constituency who use this vital service. Some 94% of flights out of Southampton are operated by Flybe, meaning that any loss of service will have a detrimental impact on the local economy and jobs in my constituency. Given this Government’s pledge to back prosperity across the whole United Kingdom, will he reassure me that he will do anything and everything necessary to keep this airline afloat for my constituents and local jobs in Eastleigh?

Steve Brine: The Flybe crisis—and it is a crisis—could soon become a major disruption for many of my constituents, with half term looming. There is clearly a short-term issue here that I know Ministers are grappling with; I wish them well and they have my support. There is an uneven playing field around APD and regulations on regional airlines and airports, and that has without doubt contributed to Flybe’s current predicament. Longer term, is there any appetite within Government to address that and the crippling impact it is having on the regional connectivity that he and the Prime Minister have rightly referred to?

Paul Maynard: My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point. When we consider aviation, it is not just about aviation; it is also about links across other modes of transport. He will know that I am the Minister responsible for Northern Powerhouse Rail so take a very close interest in it, and I am always happy to discuss it with him.

Alyn Smith: I commend the Foreign Secretary on his statement, and I have to say that I agreed with every word of it. The Scottish National party very much supports actions against nuclear proliferation in the middle east. There was ample scope to trigger the dispute resolution mechanism, so I am glad that the External Action Service is going through the gears on that. I very much liked the phrase in his statement that these efforts are to “reinforce the diplomatic track”. We all agree on that. So let us go back to this morning’s interview with the Prime Minister on breakfast TV, because I think it bears repetition. He said of the JCPOA:
“let’s replace it with the Trump deal. That’s what we need to see…President Trump is a great dealmaker by his own account, and by many others…Let’s work together to replace the JCPOA and get the Trump deal instead.”
I am very happy to support the Foreign Secretary from the SNP Benches, but it seems that he is getting more support from the SNP than his own Prime Minister. How seriously does he think Tehran takes us all right now?

Dominic Raab: The meetings that the Prime Minister has will be publicised in the usual way through the usual channels, but I have met Richard Ratcliffe. We of course understand the concern of Nazanin’s family and also all the other dual nationals who are detained. We have seen Iran’s behaviour deteriorate not just on the nuclear front and not just in the revolutionary guards’ activities in the region, but in relation to dual nationals. It is at the forefront of our mind to get a deal, long term, with the Iranians that can bring in all those aspects, which is why the nuclear deal is critically important. We also want to address the wider issues; that is why the Prime Minister has taken the approach that he has.

Robert Alexander Courts: Will the Foreign Secretary outline the steps that are being taken to safeguard British citizens, personnel and interests in the region?

Dominic Raab: I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I share his concerns that there are weaknesses to the JCPOA. It is time-limited. There are other weaknesses to it. We have never been doe-eyed about it being the perfect deal, but it is also the only deal in town which is restraining the behaviour of Iran. As we have now got to a situation where Iran is not complying with those restraints, we have to trigger the DRM as a matter of the credibility of the deal and the credibility of the E3. I take his point—it is the point that the Prime Minister made—that we should also be ambitious for a broader deal that deals with not only the nuclear issue in a more sustainable and long-term way but all the other wider concerns that those in the region, the Europeans and the Americans have about Iran’s conduct in the region.

Gavin Williamson: May I say how delighted I am to see so many new faces among us? They could not have arrived at a more exciting time. This Government have a historic mandate to push through an ambitious and challenging agenda, to make changes that will transform the lives and prospects of a generation. We are poised to shape a new Britain. We are primed for a new era. This Government are ready to ensure that Britain can seize the opportunities that lie ahead of us after we leave the European Union—a Britain where the young people of today are prepared for the world of tomorrow.
Education is a mirror to the kind of society that we want to see—an open, flexible tolerant and supportive society where everyone, wherever they are from and whatever their talents, has the chance to achieve their dreams and ambitions. Since becoming Education Secretary, I have been committed to making those ambitions a reality. As Her Majesty the Queen set out in her Gracious Speech on 19 December, we are about to embark on a full programme to ensure that everyone feels the benefit of these changes.

Gavin Williamson: The hon. Gentleman has never been known for his skill at maths. If he were to look at the Confederation of School Trusts figures, an independent organisation that has done the calculations of what every school will receive, he will see that every school is getting a per pupil increase in funding. It is a shame that he did not take the opportunity to welcome that.
One of our most pressing priorities is to make sure that all children in care or in need of adoption are given a loving and stable home. We are providing councils with an additional £1 billion for adult and children social care in every year of this Parliament. That is alongside the £84 million to be spent over five years to keep more children at home safely. We are also going to review the care system to make sure that all care placements and settings provide children and young adults with the support that they need.

Gavin Williamson: I thought the hon. Lady was going talk about our youth investment fund, and the half-a-billion pound investment that has been pledged by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to make a real difference. [Interruption.] The Liberal Democrat Member sneers at the mention of half-a-billion pounds as if this is a small amount of money, but I think most Conservative Members recognise that half-a-billion pounds is an awful lot of money.

Gavin Williamson: My hon. Friend and fellow Staffordshire Member makes a powerful point, because what the Labour party was doing was throwing away the ability to ensure that we enforce ever-increasing standards and better attainment for our children. What is even more disturbing were the proposals to scrap Ofsted. Labour was saying that for those children who are most vulnerable—those who are in social care—there would be no independent inspectorate to make sure that their interests were being protected, and it was letting local authorities mark their own homework. That is not what any of us wish to see. I hope that the Labour leadership race will give Labour the opportunity to  rethink some of its more imaginative policies and come back with something that works for both pupils and parents.
Since 2010 the Government have been transforming the education system to place more autonomy and freedom in the hands of teachers, giving parents more choice. The free schools programme has been a key part of this and is a stand-out success. Our manifesto pledges to build more free schools, to continue to promote innovation and to continue to drive higher standards in schools, especially in some of the communities that are most deprived and that need to see something better in the education provided.

Gavin Williamson: As the hon. Gentleman said, that is currently being reviewed by an expert panel. I am sure that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government will go into more detail when he responds to the debate at close of business today.
We, as a Conservative party, understand the importance of owning your own home. As a Government committed to a fairer society, it is crucial that we address the divide between those who can afford their own home and those who cannot. Our first-home scheme will provide local people with a discount on the costs of a new home, which will save them tens of thousands of pounds. Our shared ownership reforms will provide a further route to home ownership. We will deliver at least 1 million more homes over the next five years to help more people on to the housing ladder. We will also put an end to the abuse of leaseholds by banning new leasehold houses and restricting future ground rents to a peppercorn.
No less important than people’s homes are the communities they live in. We are committed to keeping our town centres vibrant. We are changing the business rate system to give small retailers a bigger discount on their rates, as well as extending the discount to cinemas and music venues, and, importantly, introducing additional discounts to pubs. We will conduct a fundamental review of business rates and we will increase the frequency of business rates revaluations.
It is the Government’s intention to unleash the potential of every corner of England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland by bridging the productivity gap, levelling up opportunity and prosperity across the nation, and starting a skills and infrastructure revolution. We will create more mayors across England to devolve power away from Westminster, and we will bring forward a framework for devolution and a White Paper.
I do not want to delay any further in getting straight on with the work of this challenging and ambitious agenda; an agenda that is driven by fairness and that will make a difference to more people, enabling them to look forward to a future with optimism and confidence. In Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech, we see the beginnings of a better Britain for everyone. I commend the Gracious Speech to the House.

Angela Rayner: Let me welcome you to the Chair, Mr Deputy Speaker. I also welcome the new Members to the Chamber for today’s debate. We look forward to hearing some fantastic maiden speeches, so I will keep my speech relatively brief. That will be easy because, quite frankly, there is so little actual substance in this Queen’s Speech for us to respond to.
Today, the Secretary of State made his first speech since November. Education was the issue that the Conservatives did not want to talk about in the election. When they did, they had a lot more to say about our policies than their own. I am glad they paid particular attention to an area that gets little attention in these debates: the care of the most vulnerable children. Our manifesto committed to a wholesale review of the care system and a replacement for the troubled families programme. A week later, their manifesto promised a review of the care system and an improvement to the troubled families programme—to think that Ministers once promised to crack down on plagiarism!
I hope that that was not simply a cheap imitation. Will the Secretary of State confirm that their review will include kinship care, and consider the need for national standards for fostering and proper regulation of semi-supported housing? When will the review begin? What will its terms be? Who will undertake it, and precisely what does he want it to achieve? Can he tell us what improving the troubled families programme means, and whether any successor programme will not just fall victim to yet more local government cuts?
Let me offer this in a genuinely constructive spirit. I proposed a simple policy that could transform the lives of children who have experienced care. Many do not have a permanent home address and going to university with only term-time accommodation available is a challenge. Barely more than a tenth of children leaving care go to university and 40% drop out—the highest among all groups of students. Yet those who stay on are as likely to attain the best grades as any other. Providing free all-year-round accommodation for those students would transform their lives. The cost is tiny and would be repaid many times over, not just economically but with something more than money: human potential realised.
The Conservatives made another election promise to the most vulnerable children. Their manifesto pledged to:
“grant asylum and support to refugees fleeing persecution”,
yet last week, just two weeks into the parliamentary Session, they rejected an amendment protecting the right of unaccompanied child refugees to be reunited with their family after Brexit. Surely, it is our most basic moral duty to ensure that children can be reunited with their families? If we judge the Government on how they treat the powerless and penniless, then the judgment on this must be damning. It is a betrayal not just of those children, but of the best traditions of this country. Frankly, I hope that Members—even Conservative Members—will urge the other place to overturn it.
The Prime Minister described the Queen’s Speech as a blueprint for the future of Britain, so it is telling that education is missing from the blueprint. I have now responded to three Queen’s Speeches by three Education Secretaries in three years. Between them, there has not been one single piece of primary legislation. The only education bills produced by the Government are the ones being handed to parents by headteachers desperate for donations for their school gates to stay open. Despite the Education Secretary’s boast, the Government will not even reverse the school cuts they have imposed since 2010. As the Institute for Fiscal Studies found, even in the financial year 2022-23, when the new money that was promised is due finally to appear, schools will still be hundreds of millions of pounds worse off than they were in 2010. Capital funding for education, which has already been cut by 40% since they came to power over nine years ago, will continue to fall even further. The money that they are slowly putting in has been deliberately taken away from the schools and the pupils who need it most. They call it “levelling up”, Mr Deputy Speaker. What I call it is an absolute joke.
The Government are not targeting help at the most disadvantaged; they are keeping them in their place. As the Education Policy Institute found, under these plans a child on free school meals will get less than half the funding of a child who does not. What of the previous Conservative Government’s totemic policy, the pupil premium? The past two Tory manifestos promised to protect it. The past two Tory Governments went on to cut it. This Prime Minister has solved that problem: he has given up even making the promise in the first place. The Conservatives’ manifesto contained not a word or a penny for it, so the Minister has the chance to make his intentions plain today. Will they keep the pupil premium, and will they finally increase it in real terms, rather than continue to see it fall year on year?
Another set of pupils deserve more support but are not getting it. By the financial year 2020-21, local councils face a spending shortfall of over £1 billion for children with special educational needs and disabilities. Despite what the Education Secretary said, his Department is not offering to make up that shortfall—and, even then, there is only a one-year deal. Councils and schools have no idea how much more funding, if any, they will get to support pupils with high needs in the years ahead. They cannot plan their provision and ensure that every child gets the support that they need. When will the review of high-needs funding be completed, and will the Government guarantee that local government will not simply be handed yet more responsibilities without resources?
What of the parents struggling with the basic costs of school thanks to the stagnating wages, axed tax credits and years of cuts that the Government have overseen?  How many times have we heard Ministers pledge action on the cost of school uniforms and equipment? They first did so in November 2015. We are four years and four Education Secretaries on. Just before Dissolution, the Minister for School Standards told the House that the Government were waiting for a “suitable legislative opportunity”. Perhaps the Education Secretary can answer this: if the Queen’s Speech is not a suitable opportunity for legislation, what on earth is? In the previous Session, the then hon. Member for Peterborough tabled a private Member’s Bill that would have addressed the issue—frankly, she managed more legislation in six months as an Opposition Back Bencher than the Government managed in four years in office. Labour’s Welsh Assembly Government have done the same, using existing powers to regulate. I have yet to hear why this Government cannot also do the same, so perhaps the Minister will tell us whether, if they will not act, they will at least support a private Member’s Bill from an Opposition Member who will.
While we are on the subject of Bills that are missing in action, perhaps the Government can tell us what has happened to their legislation to regulate home education. The right approach would have cross-party support, but we cannot scrutinise what does not exist, so where is it? The same goes for their school-level funding formula, which they said needs primary legislation. There was also no detail on the expansion of childcare, maintained nurseries, or Sure Start funding. The Secretary of State must be aware that the funding for early years that was announced in the spending review does not even begin to meet the cost of inflation.
The story is the same in further and higher education. The Augar review went from being a flagship to a ghost ship. The last Education Secretary, the right hon. Member for East Hampshire (Damian Hinds), promised when it was published that the Government
“will come forward with the conclusion of the review at the end of the year, at the spending review.” —[Official Report, 4 June 2019; Vol. 661, c. 58.]
Both have gone by and we have had just vague words. Further education is meant to be the Education Secretary’s passion, but since 2010 the Government have cut funding for this vital area each and every year. In real terms, funding has been cut by over £3 billion. In adult education, with over £1 billion cut from annual funding, the national skills fund will embed hundreds of millions of pounds in annual cuts.

Chris Grayling: Absolutely. I mentioned the two Secretaries of State, rather than just the one, precisely because I think partnership is one way to ease pressure on heads in schools and create a better package of support for those young people.
The other area brought to my attention is the funding situation for academy trusts that have found themselves under pressure in the last couple of years. The increased funding settlement will help, but will the Secretary of State for Education reconsider the way we support academy trusts so that we can do everything we can to ensure that they can deliver the full benefits of the partnerships they offer?
I want to move on to housing and local planning. Mr Deputy Speaker, you will know that the Queen’s Speech contained further welcome measures to support the growth of first-time buyers in the housing market and the provision of housing in this country. It is much needed. I cannot believe there are many of us who do not deal with the challenges in our constituencies of families who cannot get homes in the social housing  sector and are struggling even to get into the rented sector, let alone to buy their own home. We need to build more houses. I think that unites most people on both sides of the House.
We have to do that in the smartest possible way, however, and help local authorities that have particular challenges to meet the needs of their areas. I represent three local authority areas. Conservative-controlled Reigate and Banstead has done a very good job of putting together a local plan and delivering a sensible strategy for the future. Liberal Democrat-controlled Mole Valley District Council has only just started bringing forward its plans and ideas. I await the detail in the coming weeks, but I fear that it will still try to build on substantial parts of the green built, which we must seek to resist wherever possible.
The particular challenge—my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is aware of my concern—is in the borough of Epsom and Ewell, which is the majority of my constituency. It is the most densely populated borough in Surrey, and its open spaces, such as they exist, are almost entirely green belt, so there are relatively few opportunities to build new housing without encroaching on the restrictions around green-belt development and without building disproportionately high buildings that would destroy the character of the area.
There are ways of solving this problem. I have put some ideas to the local borough as to how it can do that. One is by integrating residential and commercial development in mid-height developments in parts of Epsom and Ewell where there is an opportunity to create not just housing but economic opportunities. In the University for the Creative Arts, we have one of the best creative universities in the country, if not in Europe. We can harness the skills of the young people coming out of that university to build new businesses in the area and provide homes adjoining them so that those young people can develop businesses and live close by.
We will need two things to deliver the right approach for the area. The first is wisdom from the Planning Inspectorate. It has to work with us. It is all too easy for it to come in, follow a broad-brush national guideline and not actually consider the local circumstances or work with the local authority and local politicians to deliver the right strategy for the area. My message for the Secretary of State is this: the more he can encourage the inspectorate to take a wise, thoughtful and strategic approach, the easier it will be for those of us who believe we have to provide additional homes to ensure that happens.
The second thing is that, particularly in densely populated areas with limited opportunities for development, there will be a limit to the number of years for which these extra houses can be provided. We cannot build 500 or 600 houses a year in perpetuity. While I believe we have to put our foot on the accelerator and deliver more housing right now, I hope that the inspectorate will not be encouraged simply to come back and say, “You have to make this provision in perpetuity. You have to provide sites going on and on into the future”. The national planning policy framework states specifically that we must provide housing and look after the local economy, but we must also make development sustainable, so there will be a limit to how far into the future we can carry on building in areas that are already intensely developed.
I give this commitment to the Secretary of State: I intend to play an active role in making sure that my constituency delivers the homes we need—that is essential —and that we use the tools in the Queen’s Speech to support first-time buyers, who should have the opportunity to live and work locally, but I also want an inspectorate that is wise enough to work alongside local politicians to deliver that and does not just shoehorn in developments that are inappropriate for the area.
That is all I wanted to say. I am grateful to the two Secretaries of State for the conversations I have had with them over the past few months about some of these issues—I intend to carry on having those conversations—but I am also very proud to be standing here as part of a majority Conservative Government delivering a Queen’s Speech that is full of the things this country needs and ideas that will transform people’s lives. We will hear lots of nonsense from the Opposition Benches, but people should not pay the slightest attention to it. The Government are delivering, will carry on delivering and will make a real difference to Britain.

Carol Monaghan: I welcome you to your new position, Mr Deputy Speaker.
I am slightly concerned by the closing remarks of the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) about not paying the blindest bit of attention to those on the Opposition Benches. The purpose of the Opposition is to scrutinise Government, and a Government that has a free rein to do what it wishes is a very dangerous tool, so we should all be aware that while we might not agree politically on different issues, we should be listening and paying attention to points raised, regardless of where they come from.
On education, the Queen’s Speech had a lot of small promises that are not going to deliver the punch required. In our considerations, we have to ask whether education is about personal gain or societal good. If it is about personal gain, why should we be that bothered? If it is about societal good, education must be from early years to employment and must be provided by Government, regardless of the path a young person takes. Every year round about the time of national exam results there is a great campaign called NoWrongPath. There is no wrong path—different young people will take different routes to achieve what they want—but we must be there to support them, financially and in other ways, because this is not just about getting young people to university; it is about positive destinations and employment. Some 93% of young people in Scotland achieve positive destinations, which is the highest in the UK, and that means employment, training and tertiary education. I talk about tertiary education, rather than higher and further education, because in Scotland the lines are blurred, and should be blurred regardless of where someone lives in the UK. It should not be about HE being the gold standard and FE being something different. We need to work in collaboration, and all types of tertiary institutions have their place.
The investment in FE in the Queen’s Speech will not have clout if FE is considered second best to HE. The £1.8 billion to upgrade the infrastructure does not come close to what is required for FE in England. Frankly, it is too little too late. A lot of that money will be used up dealing with a backlog of maintenance problems and  ongoing issues. Given the huge number of locations delivering FE in England, what has been proposed is merely a small sticking plaster to cover a huge, gaping wound.
City of Glasgow College, in the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss), is one of the institutions that have benefited from the £810 million invested by the Scottish Government since 2007. That is approximately 45% of the amount that the UK Government are proposing to invest in FE in England, which is far closer to the figure that is required. Scaled up, it would be £8 billion, not £1.8 billion.
City of Glasgow College benefited hugely from the Scottish Government’s investment, receiving £228 million to create a “supercampus” for 40,000 youngsters  in Glasgow. The college sits between two higher  education institutions, Strathclyde and Glasgow Caledonian Universities. For a long time, youngsters attending colleges felt second best because their institutions looked second best, but City of Glasgow College is the absolute jewel of Cathedral street in the centre of Glasgow, and no young people studying at that college consider themselves to be second best.
Let me say something about schools. School funding is an ongoing issue. In England, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, school spending per pupil has fallen by 8% in real terms since 2010. That entirely contradicts the Prime Minister, who has said that school spending is at record levels.

David Davis: The first thing to say is that I will not focus solely on education today. As you know, Mr Deputy Speaker, I always focus on my favourite line in the Queen’s Speech, which is the last one:
“Other measures will be laid before you.”
It gives us the option of talking about whatever we like. I should also, en passant, like to say a personal thank you to the Secretary of State for his announcement of the extra funding for special needs. He may know that I have a special interest in this, a personal interest, and this funding will go to a very important sector.
This Queen’s Speech was the longest ever Queen’s Speech I have known in terms of duration. At the beginning of the debate on the Queen’s Speech before Christmas, my hon. Friend the Member for North East Derbyshire (Lee Rowley) said that these had been “troubled times” for Parliament. But that is always the case when this country faces a point of inflection and a change of historic position. Our nation now faces a reset moment on a par with 1945, when the Attlee Government came  in, and with 1979, when the Thatcher Government came in. Both of them had enormous national problems to solve, and we are in the same position. Thatcher’s revolution, controversial as it was, was above all a revolution of expectations, in which the United Kingdom once more realised it was able to stand on its own two feet. In truth, we are facing something similar today.
However, in the next decade, Brexit will not be the biggest challenge to the UK Government and our nation. Fast globalisation of trade and massive technological change will create bigger challenges and bigger opportunities even than Brexit. In the past 30 years, that globalisation has raised half the world out of poverty, but that trend is not secure. We as a nation need to be ready to act, both politically to ensure that free trade remains central to the world’s economic operating systems, and commercially to seize the advantages in that for ourselves. Brexit is the catalyst in that process; it is not the outcome. Brexit by itself is not enough. To exploit the opportunities given to us by Brexit, we need to overhaul British society and the British economy. That is the challenge in front of us.
High-quality public services, education, healthcare, social support and the rule of law are vital parts of a decent society, but the Government can provide them only if they have the resources to pay for them. That is our first challenge, and the fundamental weakness in all the Opposition arguments so far today. The reason that Labour lost hundreds of thousands of votes in the north of England is that nobody believed it was able to pay for its promises. The public were right, as always, and the Labour party was wrong.
So what will dictate whether we are able to meet our own aims for our society? The key issue that determines the affluence of citizens, the delivery of public services and even the level of opportunity in society is one boring technical term: productivity. From shortly after the war in 1948, when they started measuring it, until 2008, productivity in this country—whether it was total productivity or labour productivity—grew by 2.25% a year. It bounced around a bit, but never by very much. It grew by 2.25%, year on year, every year in the 60 years from 1948 to 2008. Since 2008, it has been at 0.5%.

David Davis: My point here is that we are not about tinkering with one or two rules. We should be rethinking the whole system. The hon. Lady will forgive me if I do not go down the route that she has laid for me, because we should think about rethinking the whole system.
The Secretary of State was eloquent about the achievements at school level, and he was right. While I am on my feet, I pay tribute to the Minister for School Standards, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bognor Regis and Littlehampton (Nick Gibb), who did a fabulous job of developing phonics-based education—[Interruption.] Oh, he is there on the Front Bench. He did a fabulous job on phonics—one of the great successes of all the Education Departments of the past 30 years. Of course, I take it as a given that we have done better than Labour would have and, of course, we have mostly kept up with our international competitors. However, to use a phrase that came up more times than any other in my school reports, my reaction is, “Can do better.” That was the theme or motto of my school reports, and I think we can do better here.
In the friendliest possible way, we are not doing what some of our competitors, including the Chinese, the Uruguayans, believe it or not, and the Belgians, are doing, which is seizing an opportunity. Technology is such that we ought to be re-engineering the classroom. We ought to be able to re-engineer it so that the best can do better and the least good can be pulled up to the best possible outcome. That would be great for them, great for social mobility, and great for the economy as a whole. We ought to think hard about looking closely at all the things China has done. Something like 1,300 schools are now using artificial intelligence, which is driving its teaching systems and ensuring that every child is diagnosed to find what they are good at and what they are not good at. There is much to be done there.
Productivity, however, will have to be fixed with a universal approach, and that includes, of course, investment. On an international scale, we do investment well. With all the furore and negativity about Brexit, people forget that we are still the third-highest recipient of foreign direct investment in the world—way above any European country—and we have been for years and we will continue to be. We must not damage that. When we come to the question of domestic investment, which has been up and down in recent years, we must ask ourselves what should guide our policies. We have the most productive industries in Europe by far, and the least productive. We have nine of the 25 fastest growing companies in Europe, but we have a long tail of poor performance.
One notable aspect of the productivity conundrum that stands out is that it is not uniform.
The key point in this debate is that it is the same regionally, because the golden triangle of London, Oxford and Cambridge has by far the highest productivity in Europe—the average wage in that area is 90% higher than the European average—yet some regions of our economy are down with the lowest performers in the European Union, such as southern Italy and the old East Germany. I hope the Scots Nats forgive me for including Scotland as a region in that context.
We have to do something about that. Where productivity is low, jobs are scarce and, of course, wages are low, which is a fundamental problem that this Parliament needs to attack. It argues for targeted policies like free ports and, to come directly to the point made by the hon. Member for Weaver Vale (Mike Amesbury), for a great focus on—forgive me for the phrase—unglamorous, smaller infrastructure projects designed to sort out problems that are on the deck now. We must de-bottleneck the whole economy, because that is much more likely to be  effective than grand vanity projects, and everyone knows what I am talking about. We can do that because we will have very low interest rates for the foreseeable future. If that is not enough, perhaps we should cancel High Speed 2 to pay for it.
A strategy of modestly sized infrastructure projects—road, rail, air and broadband—will help but, again, it will not be enough by itself. We need to make it more attractive to stay in the regions. We need to turn more of our regional towns and cities into magnet towns and cities, places that attract talent, money and enterprise, and it can be done. If we look around the world, there are dozens of examples. From Bilbao to Pittsburgh, and from Denver to Tel Aviv, cities have transformed their futures. We must ensure that our towns and cities can do the same.
Finally, house building has simply not kept up with the huge increase in population over the past 20 years. Year after year, the combination of a slow planning process, nimbyism and speculative land hoarding has limited the availability of housing. This has simultaneously led to higher house prices, smaller homes—our homes are now half the size they were in the 1920s, and they are the smallest in Europe—massively lower rates of home ownership, and severe rent poverty.
It is hard to solve that in London and the crowded south-east, but it can be solved in the provinces, making them more attractive in the process. The Government are actively thinking about garden villages and garden towns, and we should step up that programme. If we allowed every planning authority in the country to nominate one garden village or garden town of between 1,500 and 5,000 houses, which is big enough to be viable for a school and shops, and so on, we would not solve, but we would seriously mitigate, our housing problem. We would make it attractive for people to live in places other than the south-east. Again, that would majorly improve productivity by attracting talent back out to the provinces.
The problem of productivity is a tough one to tackle but tackle it we must. Research, investment, education, infrastructure, magnet cities and garden villages all have a contribution to make in simultaneously improving the lives of our citizens and helping us to solve this fundamental problem. If we do not solve it, we will not be able to afford to solve any of the others.
If we do all of that, we will have a very good chance of making the Prime Minister’s promise of a golden future a reality for all our citizens.

Clive Betts: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. It is good to see you in your rightful place again, in the Chair.
I make no apology for saying that I want to be a champion for local government in this Parliament. Over the past 10 years, local government has had bigger cuts  than any other part of the public sector. When we come to the comprehensive spending review, it cannot simply be about rearranging the amount of money as part of some fair funding settlement; it must actually put more money into local councils so that they can deliver the services that our communities want and need.
With a time limit rule, I had thought that I would not be able to stand again as Chair of the Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee, but I understand the Government might be thinking about removing the time limit. If so, and if the House supports it, I will probably allow my name to be put forward again.
There are things in the Queen’s Speech with which I do not necessarily agree. If the Labour party were in government, I am sure we would have done things differently, but my approach to life as a Select Committee Chair was to try to find areas where we can reach agreement and encourage, prod and enthuse the Government into going further than they might want to. I will briefly mention three areas.
First, on devolution, I welcome the Government’s commitment to levelling up the powers of the Mayors of the combined authorities. I hope the Government might do more and give them all more powers, particularly on skills, training and transport. Those Departments probably have not been as enthusiastic about devolution as others have been.
I would also like the Government to address two other matters in the White Paper. Mayoral combined authorities probably should be rolled out in other areas, but devolution, if it is to work properly in this country, has to be devolution to all councils in all places, not just to those in combined authorities. I hope the Government will seriously consider that. They were going to do it with their 100% business rate retention policy, but it was dropped when we went to 75% retention.
The other key issue is: how can we allow local authorities to raise more of their own funds, rather than simply having more power to spend the money that is handed out to them? We have the most centralised system of local government funding anywhere in Europe, and that needs to change.
Secondly, the Government are offering an all-party approach to social care, which I welcome. The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee and the Health and Social Care Committee produced a unanimous report in the last Parliament, with 22 MPs from both sides of the House recommending a social care premium and a percentage of inheritance tax as a way of funding social care. The report has been lying around for 18 months. We have a blueprint to get on with it. Germany did it 30 years ago in a cross-party, consensual way, and it has worked there, with the public generally supporting it. I hope there will be a genuine attempt by both Front Benches to reach cross-party agreement. It is on both sides to take this forward in a consensual way.
Finally, I generally welcome the promises on housing, but obviously there are big challenges. The first is the abolition of section 21 evictions. We know that evictions from private sector housing are a major cause of home- lessness in this country. The Housing, Communities and Local Government Committee’s inquiry into homelessness identified that as a problem.
Equally, if we are to abolish section 21 evictions, we need to think about how we deal with rent increases without having an overbearing rent control regime. That is a big challenge, and it might be something the Select Committee will want to consider. We recognise the good intention, but we want to know how it will be delivered in practice.
At the same time, we want to see legislation on housing courts so that there is an easier way for landlords to evict tenants who simply do not pay their rent. Landlords normally wait for the section 21 time to elapse before doing it, but if section 21 is not available, landlords need to have those powers. It is recognised in the Queen’s Speech, but we need a timetable for that to come into effect.
Another issue is how we deal with the problems of leases. Reference was made to a draft Bill at Question Time yesterday, and I think that is probably the right way forward. I know it will take a bit longer, but there are some real challenges, not about how we stop leases on new houses and deal with the unfairness of leases on new flats, but about how we tackle the problems of existing leases, including the unfairness in how some of them have been sold, the unfair service charges and the difficulties people have in buying their freehold. The Select Committee’s report recommended action on all those challenges. It is much more difficult to deal with existing leases, and a draft Bill is therefore probably the right way forward to try to make sure that we get all the nuances and the details correct. Hopefully we can also do that on a cross-party basis.
Finally, on the issue of cladding, there is a building safety Bill in the Queen’s Speech to implement the recommendations of the Grenfell inquiry and the Hackitt report, on which the Select Committee has had various hearings. There is still a challenge. The Government have put money in to deal with ACM—aluminium composite material—cladding, but there are still too many properties where, because of disputes between freeholders and leaseholders, the cladding has not been removed. The Government need to put their weight behind getting that work carried out.
The second issue to address is what to do about other forms of cladding, such as zinc cladding and the high-pressure laminate cladding, which many experts believe are as dangerous as ACM cladding. Although they will not be allowed on new buildings, they are still on existing buildings. Where leaseholders have this on their homes, they often find that they cannot sell those homes and are stuck in them. That is a real problem and the Government need to undertake a more comprehensive review of that issue.

Robert Halfon: Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and many congratulations to you.
I strongly welcome this Queen’s Speech. I believe that skills, social justice, standards and support for the profession should be the four interlocking foundations of this Government’s education programme. There is enormous talent all over the country just waiting to be unleashed, but to do that we must help lower-skilled workers to  train and boost their wages. About 6 million adults are not qualified to GCSE level. Many end up in low-paid jobs, their prospects dragged into the quicksand. A wave of lost opportunity is also about to come crashing down on the next generation, as a third of England’s 16 to 19-year olds lack basic skills. In addition, according to PwC, up to 28% of jobs taken by 16 to 24-year-olds in the UK could be at risk of automation by the early 2030s, so we must find answers quickly.
First, the Government should turbocharge adult learning. Overall adult learning is at its lowest level since 1996, and employer training has stagnated. Why not develop the national retraining scheme to focus on training for low-skilled workers into roles that align with our labour market? We need a world-class apprenticeships programme. The levy could be reformed so that it supports more apprenticeships in small and medium-sized enterprises and getting school leavers into areas of skills shortages. Access to levy funds should be limited for firms that are simply accrediting existing skills rather than adding new value, and more generous allowances should be made to employers who are upskilling low-skilled workers. There needs to be a much clearer progression route from lower to higher apprenticeships.
It is time for a healthier balance between technical and academic learning. One way to solve some of the problems in higher education that my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) pointed out in his speech is by rocket-boosting degree apprenticeships. They should be the crown jewel in a revamped technical offering: students earn while they learn, there is no debt and they are almost guaranteed to get a good skilled job at the end of it, and we meet our skills and productivity needs. Apprenticeships and degree apprenticeships should be hard-wired into careers advice.
Social justice must be the beating heart of our education policy: a bold, assertive agenda that has compassion and aspiration right at its core. Despite the good work of the Government, too many cohorts are being left behind. Disadvantaged pupils are 19 months behind by the time they do their GCSEs, and some groups are particularly vulnerable; whereas the average national attainment 8 score is 46.5, the rate for pupils with a special educational needs statement or education, health and care plan is 13.5, with the figure for looked after children being 18.8 and for white working-class pupils it is 28.5.
Everyone across the country should have access to a good school, but a child living in one of England’s poorest areas is 10 times more likely to go to a substandard school than one living in its wealthier areas. According to Ofsted, between 2006 and 2019, 415 secondary schools had at least four inspections that have not been good or outstanding, despite various interventions aimed at improving them. Schools in many deprived areas also struggle to attract experienced teachers, who are so instrumental in driving up quality. In the most disadvantaged quintile of areas, 67% of secondary schools are rated good or outstanding for the quality of teaching, whereas the figure is 93% in the wealthiest quintile. These obstacles to learning should be dismantled. We should support the development of local teachers and incentivise highly commended initial teacher training providers, such as the Redcar and Cleveland Teacher Training Partnership, which was rated outstanding by  Ofsted. By offering teaching bursaries, retention payments, salary bonuses and mentoring to good teachers in challenging areas, we can avoid the flight of local talent.
Educational standards are improving. The proportion of six-year-olds passing the phonics check increased from 58% in 2012 to 82% in 2018. More rigorous apprenticeship standards are replacing older frameworks. In the past 10 years, 1.8 million more pupils studied in good or outstanding schools. We have to build on that and export rigour to every part of our education system, including technical education. I welcome the extra funding for further education and, in particular, the £2 billion commitment to improving capital expenditure, but FE financial resources have lagged behind other education sectors in the past few years. We should carefully calculate and meet the required levels of investment beyond that, including in respect of the resources that FE providers need to support English and maths retakes—after all, pupils should not be leaving school without those basic skills in place.
The Government should also offer top-quality childcare. Almost half of disadvantaged children are already behind when they start primary school, and good-quality childcare can help to plug this gap. Children who attend high-quality settings for two to three years are almost eight months ahead of children who attend none. However, some of our early years workforce is underqualified. There is considerable scope to scale up apprenticeships, and we should use higher-level apprenticeships to address skills shortages in early years and improve quality.
The Government can help to support the profession by offering more flexibility to teachers to hone their trade and by helping schools to cover off-timetable time. There should be more emphasis on peer support. Although 30% of novice teachers in England are assigned mentors, the figure is higher in some OECD countries; for instance, in New Zealand it is 56%.
Finally, skills, social justice, standards and support for the profession must be the four pillars of our education programme. We have to extend the ladder of opportunity and invite those from the most disadvantaged backgrounds to climb to the top so that they can get jobs, prosperity and security, and meet the skills needs of our nation. We need to nurture that raw talent and focus relentlessly on addressing social injustice in education. In that way, we can build the brightest future for everyone.

Karin Smyth: I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend.
I will move briefly to climate change. Following Labour’s motion in the spring, we are agreed as a House that we face a climate emergency. The Government have a target but no path to achieving it. I suggest that if they start to align a strategy on skills and apprenticeships to the green jobs of the future, that would be of tremendous benefit to the people of Bristol South.
Bristol is home to some great innovators and enterprises working on the green agenda—for example, in the construction industry. I have supported the City of Bristol College, the West of England Combined Authority and the Government to bring the Construction Skills Centre to Bristol South. In fact, when the right hon. Member for Harlow visited Bristol South we pointed to a piece of land that we wanted to ensure was used for the centre; we hope to cut the turf on the site at Hengrove later this month.
Bristol and the west country are building, but we are short of labour. Good training in construction jobs and apprenticeships will directly help my constituents into jobs. At the centre we need training for the future, including training in green building and green technology, so that we meet the climate change targets. Currently there is little investment in training on new materials, techniques and technology, which will equip young people for the jobs of the future. The Construction Skills Centre in Bristol South provides a tremendous opportunity; I am willing to work with the Government to make the most of it.
Finally, the Government stated in the Queen’s Speech that there will be a constitution, democracy and rights commission. In my view that is long overdue. In my speech in 2015, I warned that we all needed to heed the message from the Scottish referendum; that was before the Brexit referendum. As vice-chair of the British-Irish Parliamentary Assembly, I warned throughout the Brexit debate of the dangers of ignoring voices from across these islands, but also the voice of England within the United Kingdom.
In July the Public Accounts Committee report into funding in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland noted that the baseline funding and the Barnett formula were set some 40 years ago and that spending per head of population on public services in England is the lowest in the four nations at £9,080. It is not just the money. My English constituents have no democratic control or accountability over our health service, our schools, our transport or our skills. The core institutions of our community are run by unaccountable and labyrinthine bodies, be it clinical commissioning groups, multi-academy trusts, local enterprise partnerships or the many ad hoc partnerships that have grown up over the last 10, 20 or 30 years. These bodies are a law unto themselves and their civil servant masters in London have no accountability to us locally.
I will continue to support apprenticeships, early years and the City of Bristol College to provide post-16 adult opportunities. We desperately need to secure decent funding to support young people at their post-16 transition, to help them to make the right decisions and nurture them, as we do those transitioning into reception classes  and into year 7. We need the combined authority to better use its influence to get providers to work together to make use of the available funding. Public service infrastructure is vital to reversing the education and skills deficit, and the Government need to be much bolder about the ambition for devolution in England so that we can build the western powerhouse that I talked about four and a half years ago and give people in Bristol South the opportunity that they deserve.

David Johnston: Indeed; another one.
On the far western border we have Shrivenham, which is a place where we have so many of the military families, past and present, who serve our country so well.
Ed’s departure is my considerable gain and I feel extremely lucky to represent the people of Wantage. All across the constituency we have beautiful villages; we have cutting-edge science and technology in Harwell campus and Milton Park; we have small and medium-sized enterprises and multinational businesses; and we have first-rate farming that demonstrates every day how high the standards of British agriculture are.
If the key challenges of my constituency can be summed up in one word, it is infrastructure. In different parts of the constituency, that means different things. In some places it is about road safety and trying to reopen Grove station, which was one of those lost under the Beeching cuts; in other parts it is about GP appointments and school places. In the more rural areas it is about broadband. I know that lots of these issues are familiar to Members on both sides of the House. So, there is lots in the Queen’s Speech for me to welcome, because improving infrastructure runs through it.
The reason why I wanted to speak today is because of education. As some Members of the House know, I had never been a political candidate before last month; I had been chief exec of a charity, trying to improve education and employment opportunities. There was an immediate contrast for me—a surprising baptism by fire—because when I was the chief exec of a charity and I spoke at events, people in the audience would nod encouragingly at the seeming wisdom of my remarks, but the second I became a political candidate, they would shake their heads disparagingly at the seeming stupidity of my remarks. I had to get used to that very quickly, and I am grateful to Opposition Members for not doing it today, given that this is my maiden speech. I am sure I can look forward to that in future.
I attended a school where only 20% of people passed any five GCSEs, never mind five good GCSEs. My mum left school at 16 and got a job as soon as she could. My dad left school at 14 and joined the Army as soon as he could. After university, I spent the next 16 years running organisations to provide opportunities to young people from similar backgrounds and far more challenging backgrounds to get better education and get a better job—in short, to try to improve social mobility. I would like to bring social mobility back into the debates in this House as much as I can, because last year it was referred to fewer than half the number of times it was in 2016, yet many of us in this House have stories of having been socially mobile ourselves. We all represent parents in our constituencies who are concerned that their children may not have as good a life as they had. That should be at the core of what we should be doing here.
There is lots in the Queen’s Speech for me to welcome. First, there is the improvement in the per-pupil funding across schools, which helps to correct a historic imbalance wherein some areas were given a lot more money to deal with the challenges of their pupils than other areas. I have looked at what it will mean for the schools in my constituency, and it is a significant increase. I hope that some of the money can be used to attract teachers to teach in more challenging areas, where they are most needed.
I also welcome the raising of the starting salary for teachers, because it is important that it keeps pace with the starting salary offered particularly by private sector graduate schemes. It says something important about  the value that we place on teaching as a profession. From my point of view, it should be regarded extremely highly because it is crucial to the future of the country. Running through the Queen’s Speech is greater emphasis on skills and technical education. I hope that we can finally achieve parity between vocational education and academic education.
Education is important to social mobility, but what happens in schools and colleges is not the only thing that matters for young people. Improving social mobility is not just a job for Government. I hope that our charities, our local authorities, our universities and employers will continue to increase the role that they play in providing opportunity for young people. I have worked with thousands of young people who needed that opportunity—they needed the door to be opened, then they would show what they could do. It is absolutely true that talent is everywhere; opportunity is not. The Queen’s Speech goes a considerable way in extending opportunity to places that have lacked it for far too long.

Robert Syms: May I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (David Johnston) on a very good maiden speech? The measure of this is that when somebody speaks, one thinks, “Actually, I would like to hear from him again”, and one does not necessarily say that about every colleague. I also have to say that I think this House will miss his predecessor. Wantage is in good hands, and I look forward to hearing from my hon. Friend in future.
The past two and a half years have been some of the most painful times in politics that I can remember. I am pleased that the British people were given the chance to break the deadlock and elect a Government with a majority. For those of us who are back, the atmosphere is totally different. The fact that the Government can get on and deliver Brexit is a wonderful thing and good for democracy.
To turn to the debate, one of the things that has always concerned me in Poole is how badly some of our schools have been funded over the decades. It is very difficult to argue that a child in Poole should be given less of an opportunity than someone else in the country. The Government have had, on two or three occasions, an opportunity to improve funding a little. I am glad that the Secretary of State has taken on board representations from f40 and others and we are going to make further progress over the next few years. However, I take on board points made earlier that funding is not all. Discipline, uniforms and leadership play a big role in the classroom. I am pleased to see that standards are improving and I hope we continue that as a drive for the future.
I have a few concerns. This country is a great magnet for foreign students in terms of English language schools, of which we have many in Dorset, and colleges and universities. Sometimes the immigration system behaves in a way that is not helpful to our earning billions of pounds-worth of money from abroad and bringing people to have a great experience in our colleges and universities. Sometimes, those people are a softer target than the people the system is trying to crack down on. I hope that we not only encourage foreign students to come to the United Kingdom but make the immigration system a little more flexible in the way that it treats them. Students from Saudi Arabia do not need to work when they come to the UK but sometimes students from Colombia do. If we limit people in the hours that they can work, we sometimes penalise those from poorer states. In a post-Brexit world, we have to encourage people to come to the United Kingdom. They bring in billions of pounds-worth of money. They create lots of jobs in the United Kingdom. It is seen in the accounts of foreign invisible income. It is about education as well as other things like insurance and banking. That is what we really need to encourage.
In Poole we have people who home educate, and they get very nervous every time the Government and civil servants review this. There is a role for home education within our system. I know that Ministers understand the concern when the central civil service wants to have a good look at what is going on. Sometimes it is for reasons of bullying and sometimes for religious reasons, but home education, in a free society, ought to be very much part of the system. We are starting a process of repair through fairer funding for our schools. We need to encourage foreign students because they benefit our country greatly. We need to have a diverse education system because that is the best thing for our nation.
I turn to the other subject of this debate: local government. I wish we did not make local government officers bid for so much. They spend hours putting in bids that they cannot possibly win, rather than contributing towards governing their local area. We need to be a bit more flexible on that.
The real challenge is home ownership. We need to provide security for those who rent, but we must also reverse the reduction in home ownership that has occurred over the past 10 to 15 years. The Government need to be turbocharged in this area. Many young people want to buy, and we have to do everything in our power to assist them, so that they can get on the home ownership ladder, which makes such a difference. Having equity in a home can lead people to start a business, and it changes their whole view of life. If Conservative government is about anything, it is trying to help people to buy their own home and have a full stake in society.
I welcome the Queen’s Speech, which has many exciting things in it, and I think that we are going to have a good four years of government in which we make progress. With those few words, I look forward to hearing more maiden speeches.

David Evennett: I am delighted that the Assembly is back in operation, because that is good news for Northern Ireland and for the whole United Kingdom.
I want briefly to highlight the fact that every child deserves the best start in life regardless of their background or where they live. Access to good schools is essential to build the foundations for success in future life. I am concerned about the underachievement of many working-class boys; this topic has not received enough attention in the past. This particular demographic is falling ever further behind and it shows no sign of catching up with its peers. The difference in attainment between richer pupils and their disadvantaged classmates has closed since 2011, but when results are broken down by ethnicity, it appears that the improved results among poorer pupils are largely down to the achievement of non-white children; this is exacerbated when gender is taken into account.
I welcome the fact that girls are achieving so much more now. In my constituency, we have a very good secondary school, Townley Grammar, which is excellent and is offering girls tremendous opportunities, but the boys—the working-class heroes we should have in the future—are not achieving and the Government must look into that. I welcome my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State’s positive approach to education, I welcome his speech today, and I welcome the fact that he understands the need for colleges to have more money and for working-class white boys in particular to be helped to make sure that they can fulfil their potential. If we do not do that, it will be a tragedy—a tragedy for them, for their families and for society and our communities. Even more importantly, we owe it to them to make sure that they have the same opportunities as the rest of the country and other cohorts within the age group.
This Government have done well in increasing funding for education, and have done well in setting standards in Ofsted and in the academies programme that my right hon. Friend the Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove) introduced in 2010-12; that is a real achievement, of which we can all be proud, but we need to address other areas for the future, particularly the colleges, working-class lads and social mobility. Our society requires the opportunity for people to move up the social scale; we have not had as much success in that as I would like.
However, I am sure that we will be moving forward with the programmes in the Queen’s Speech and the agenda on education and opportunity. I believe strongly in the Queen’s Speech and that the Government are on the right track, and they will have a lot of support not only in Bexleyheath and Crayford but across the country.

Janet Daby: It was not so long ago that I gave my maiden speech, and my hon. Friend the Member for Luton South (Rachel Hopkins) made an excellent maiden speech today. On that note I would also like to start by thanking the people of Lewisham East for giving me the privilege of representing them once again in this place.
The Queen’s Speech contained many promises for education, policing and our NHS. They all sounded fine until we looked further. The Government talk about investment in our public services, but who was it who targeted them with devastating funding cuts? Who was it who brought our NHS to the point where a child with pneumonia had to lay on the cold floor of an A&E department? Who was it who made severe cuts to our police service and have since decided to do a U-turn and  reinvest in our police service? And who put a huge strain on our education and brought many schools to their knees? It was this Government. Lewisham Council has faced one of the most severe cuts in its funding, with over 60% of its budget slashed. I see the painful results when I hold my surgeries and open my emails, and see pleas from families asking for help with all sorts of issues.
The main focus of my speech this afternoon is special educational needs. Before the election, I took on the case of a young boy who needed an educational healthcare plan to support his special educational needs. A child full of life and aspirations was facing bullying because he was not receiving the support he required to progress. The family ultimately took their case to a tribunal, where their appeal was successful. Last year, a staggering 89% of such cases that went to a tribunal hearing had a successful outcome for the appellant—an astounding 261% increase since 2011. There are also many more families around the country who have been unable to take their cases to tribunal. This is no fault of their own, but is instead due to a lack of resources to fight a system that is clearly working against them.
As with most of the problems we face with this Government, it all comes back to funding. Local government is severely underfunded. At the same time, youth violence is persistent. We have had unprecedented cuts to youth services and to the youth offending service. With a lack of assessments in prisons, many young people face having their special educational needs going unnoticed. The funding currently available for special educational needs is simply inadequate. The Government are not providing the money to meet this education and health demand. Meanwhile, local authorities like Lewisham have a high percentage of children with autism. They need increased funding, instead of expecting to face a further funding shortfall.
Lewisham has, on average, experienced a cut of £257 per pupil. Conisborough College in my constituency has lost as much as £386 per pupil. The charity IPSEA—Independent Parental Special Education Advice—highlights that the funding available is often not directed to pupils on the basis of need, given the disproportionate numbers of pupils with special educational needs and disabilities who end up excluded from school or otherwise out of education. The Institute for Fiscal Studies states that the Government’s education funding will only be enough to keep spending per pupil the same as it is now—underfunded. It is in the midst of a cash crisis, making it increasingly challenging to provide children with the support they need.
It is important that the Government allocate the funding needed to enable local authorities and schools to meet their statutory obligations and to reduce the bureaucratic nature of the system. In the midst of a mental health crisis in young adults, we must do more to address the increasing lack of support in further education colleges. We need to create a fair system that provides the necessary support to children and young people with special educational needs. Children and young people in this country and in my constituency have ambitions. It is our responsibility to ensure that no one is unfairly held back.

Conor McGinn: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Ipswich (Tom Hunt), whom I congratulate on a very gracious and eloquent maiden speech. It is also a pleasure to see you returned to your place, Madam Deputy Speaker. I congratulate you on your elevation to Chairman of Ways and Means.
In the limited time available, I want to speak about some of the challenges facing us in St Helens and the wider coalfield communities in the north of England,  but I also want to speak about what constitutes those communities and why we have reasons to be optimistic. To outline the state of play in St Helens is to paint an unattractive and difficult picture: our local authority is losing £90 million a year in funding, and with a low business rates base we cannot even begin to mitigate that and have had to freeze spending on all but essential services; our schools have lost £5.3 million in the last year, which is the equivalent of £211 per pupil; early-years provision has suffered as well; 4,000 households in my constituency are on universal credit; and we had the highest rate of suicide in the country. I am pleased to say we have taken steps to address that, as a result of which it is no longer the highest, but our rates of depression are also higher than the national average. We have seen knife crime increase, we have lost 1,700 police officers on Merseyside, and youth provision has declined as well. This week the NHS announced that it would erect temporary structures outside Whiston Hospital because of a lack of space caused by the demand placed on its services. Record numbers attended our A&E department last week, which is no wonder given that in St Helens people can wait up to 28 days for a GP appointment.
That is the reality of 10 years of Conservative government. However, I have always put St Helens and the people who live there first, and I think it fair to say that I have a very constructive and good relationship with the Minister for the Northern Powerhouse and Local Growth, the right hon. Member for Rossendale and Darwen (Jake Berry), and with the Secretary of State. When it is in the interests of my constituents and the community in which I live and which I represent, I want to work collaboratively with the Members—from whichever side of the House—who I believe have the best interests of those communities at heart.
Ours is a very proud and resilient community. The towns of St Helens and Newton-le-Willows are anchored and rooted in tradition, but they are changing as well, in terms of sport, arts, culture and all the other things that make a community, such as families and the role of faith organisations, which are very strong in St Helens. The churches provide care for the elderly, run food banks and operate parent and toddler groups. I hope that the leadership debate in my own party, but also the implementation of the programme for government in the Queen’s Speech, will give due consideration to the role of faith organisations in communities, which has too often been overlooked and not properly valued. We do not have to “do God” to “get” faith, and to understand the importance of the part that those organisations play in our communities.
In the last Parliament, I chaired the all-party parliamentary group for the coalfield communities. I was delighted that before the election we were able to publish 10 priorities for the former coalfields, alongside the Coalfields Regeneration Trust and the Industrial Communities Alliance. I think that all Members will have received copies this week. I urge the Secretary of State and the Minister for the Northern Powerhouse to look carefully at what is not a nostalgic hark back to what those communities had and unjustifiably lost—they still feel deep and justified pain about that—but something that looks to the future, and considers what those communities need to thrive again.
There are opportunities, and there are reasons to be optimistic. The pit at Parkside, the former colliery site in my constituency, was the last in east Lancashire to close. For nearly 30 years we have been waiting for plans to develop it, and I am glad to say that those are now advancing, alongside the infrastructure that we need to bring jobs and growth back to St Helens. The jobs that we bring will be not the jobs of the past but the jobs of today and tomorrow, and a new green industrial deal and strategy will be an important part of that. St Helens is, of course, famous for its glass industry. We led the world in the past, and we can lead the world again. Glass Futures has a hugely impressive programme, and is planning to base a £40 million research facility in St Helens.
I am delighted that Ministers are present to hear me say that we have been invited to apply for funding from the Town Deals Fund , and I will be attending a board meeting along with stakeholders representing the whole community. The bid has invigorated a sense of civic duty and political leadership in St Helens. I hope that it will be as competitive as we believe it will be, and that the Government will look on it favourably.
I do not come from St Helens, or from Newton-le-Willows. That may come as a shock to those who have been listening to my very thickly disguised Lancashire accent. [Laughter.] However, I love living in the area, and I am very proud to represent it. My family are part of the community and my children go to school there, so I have a personal investment in building a better future for them and, indeed, for every family in St Helens. I should be really grateful if the Government helped me to do that.

Steve McCabe: I congratulate the hon. Member for Milton Keynes North (Ben Everitt) on a very good and well balanced maiden speech. I liked Mark Lancaster and, from what we have heard today, we have a worthy successor in the hon. Gentleman.
I acknowledge the achievement of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland in getting the Assembly back up and running. We should support the Government when they do the right thing.
I also acknowledge the election result. Opposition Members need to recognise the message when the electorate produce a majority on that scale. We cannot just condemn policies and ideas because someone else suggests them; it is about analysing what is being done, exposing the downsides and offering credible alternatives.
I was first elected in 1997, so I understand the euphoria of Conservative Members, but government is tough and it gets tougher. Westminster is not just about party or the Chamber. There are lots of all-party parliamentary groups in this place, and they require people to work together. It is not all tribal, and sometimes those all-party groups can be just as influential as anything we hear from the Dispatch Box.
I gently say to the Secretary of State for Education, who is not in his place, that government also requires some humility. I welcome any promise to raise spending on education, but I remind Ministers that many schools in Birmingham are already facing deficit budgets. Raising pupil spending is welcome but, unless real adjustments are made to recognise disadvantage, per capita increases may only serve to cement that disadvantage.
I welcome the Secretary of State’s admission of the problems faced by pupils with special educational needs and disabilities, such as problems with access to schools and transport, shortages of teaching assistants and a lack of speech and language therapy. We are failing these children. Education, health and care plans are being delayed to save money, and in most places the concept of the local offer is meaningless. We need to review this aspect of the Children and Families Act 2014. We need to know that the high-needs funding block will be ring-fenced and that all the money will go to youngsters with special needs. We need to know that local authorities and health bodies will have the money to reinforce the aspects of the Act for which they are responsible.
I hope that the new student visa will make it easier for people to come here to study, but PhD students do not find it particularly easy to stay after they complete their doctorates. They are often young and at a stage where they do not earn much money. Unless we incentivise them to stay and perhaps make a life here, we will be risking the very talent and expertise we need. I hope the Government will say more about how the proposals for post-study work opportunities will operate alongside the points system.
On social care, I hope the Government move quickly, as too many people are being denied proper help and cannot afford the costs of care. Any plans that involve local authorities need to spell out proper funding arrangements and obligations. We require good common standards applied to commissioners and delivery bodies. Home care and home support should mean the same in Birmingham, Bournemouth or Burnley. It is ridiculous  that the same job title can cost and mean something so different in different places. It leads to people being trapped in hospital beds because necessary home support is unavailable or woefully inadequate.
New laws to make schools, police, local authorities and health groups work together to prevent crime sound remarkably like many of the early measures of the Blair Government to me. Those had success because they were backed up by extra resources and I simply say that there is no point in commanding underfunded agencies to take on more responsibilities. If the police make an arrest as part of an operation in Birmingham, they cancel the operation while the offenders are carted across town to the only police station with cells. Schools are already providing a range of welfare services for children and families, which used to be a local authority responsibility, but the schools are not being funded for doing that. In addition, as we all know, local authorities and clinical commissioning groups are devoted to rationing services to save money. Joint working needs proper resources and the proper measurement of anticipated outcomes.
I can detect that, much as you would love to hear more and more from me, Madam Deputy Speaker, you are indicating, in your new elevated position, that I should perhaps withdraw now.

Wendy Chamberlain: I begin my maiden speech, perhaps unusually, by congratulating the hon. Member for Bury North (James Daly) on his excellent maiden speech. We can certainly agree on ensuring that deprived children and those with additional support needs are supported. I note his work on the board of governors of Hoyle nursery and commend its achievements as well as those of Springfield Primary and Bury College. I commend the hon. Gentleman’s commitment to education. I appreciate his telling us about his cricket-playing career and the fact that perhaps it does not live up to expectations. I play the amateur Scottish sport of shinty and would be happy to tell Members all about it. I do not play particularly well, so stand well back. I look forward to hearing from the hon. Gentleman again during his time in Parliament.
It is a great honour to make my maiden speech as the new Member of Parliament for North East Fife. I pay tribute to my most recent predecessor, Stephen Gethins, who served North East Fife with distinction from 2015. It is clear from my few days here that he was well liked and well respected by Members across the House. I recognise the work of his parliamentary team, both here and in the constituency. It is easy to forget in the heat of an election that when Members lose or resign their seat that has a direct impact on their employees, so I wish all of them the best for the future.
I thought of Stephen last week, as he is a committed European and a strong supporter of the Erasmus scheme. He will be saddened that the House voted against the scheme, which has nothing to do with the EU’s institutions, which will simply deprive British students of the chance to enjoy studying across Europe—something from which Stephen benefited.
There is much that Stephen, his former SNP colleagues and I agree on regarding Europe and the UK’s role within it. North East Fife as a constituency voted to  remain within the UK and in the European Union in recent referendums. Maintaining Scotland’s place in the UK is best for the economic and social wellbeing of these islands, and it is incumbent on everyone who believes that to demonstrate it not only in our words but in our actions. It was my friend and colleague, Lord Campbell of Pittenweem, who turned North East Fife into a Liberal Democrat constituency, to which it has returned with my election. He is held in much affection in the constituency, but North East Fife has a longer Liberal tradition, with Prime Minister Herbert Asquith representing the seat in its previous form of East Fife. Asquith and I might differ in our views on universal suffrage, but 100 years on from Nancy Astor it is a huge honour to be the first female Member of Parliament to represent the constituency. I could not have achieved that without the support of the Liberal Democrat campaign for gender balance, the Parliament Project and the 50:50 Parliament #AskHertoStand campaign.
I am aware that I come from a position of privilege. I am white, heterosexual and cisgender. I was in a position where I could afford to take an unpaid career break during the election campaign, then leave my employment directly after my election. I know that for many who have an ambition to enter politics, whether at local or national level, that is simply not possible. I urge the House to consider how it continues to increase diversity not only in the Chamber but throughout politics and across all areas of diversity, including disability, ethnicity and socioeconomic background—we should not limit ourselves to a gender perspective. Local government in particular needs increased diversity. I had the privilege of serving for 12 years as a police officer. Like the police service, we should seek to ensure that we are truly reflective of the communities we serve and represent.
North East Fife is a diverse and beautiful constituency, taking in Levenmouth, the Howe of Fife, the East Neuk, the royal burgh of Cupar and communities on the south banks of the Tay. It is home to Leuchars Army and former RAF base. St Andrews is the home of golf, which will again welcome the open in 2021. It is also home to St Andrews University, Scotland’s oldest university, established in 1413. The university is the area’s major employer, and was recently ranked by The Guardian as Scotland’s top University, and second in the UK—a considerable achievement, I am sure Members agree.
My constituency’s other industries include tourism, farming, agriculture and our vital fishing communities. One area that combines a number of these is the growth in distilleries in the constituency that are providing both produce and visitor attractions. My predecessor mentioned our whisky distilleries in his maiden speech, but I would also like to mention North East Fife’s increasing number of gin distilleries, such as Eden Mill, Pilgrim’s, Darnley’s of Kingsbarns and Lundin Links. Having come to this House directly from the drinks industry, I hold a general certificate in distilling and would be more than happy to tutor Members accordingly. I am also noticing a theme to my party’s maiden speeches, given that my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Daisy Cooper) referred to the number of pubs in her constituency yesterday.
North East Fife is a largely rural constituency. As well as presenting many of the opportunities I have outlined, this also means that it has challenges, particularly around transport, rural poverty and accessing public services. I am delighted to see that the reinstatement of  the Levenmouth railway is now moving forward. This will see one of the local communities that is most poorly served by public transport properly connected to the central belt of Scotland. I commend the work of the members of the Levenmouth Rail Campaign for their efforts in this regard.
I am my party’s spokesperson on political and constitutional reform, and believe that transformation is required in local government in England in order to ensure better representation. Alongside the introduction of a written constitution and renewed support for the devolved Administrations, these steps are urgently needed. Local government in England is confusing and often unaccountable, and that also speaks to the Westminster electoral first-past-the-post system. It took 330,000 votes in the general election to elect me or one of my Liberal Democrat MP colleagues, whereas it took just 38,000 votes to elect a Conservative. To elect the only MP for the Greens—the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas)—took 866,000 votes. On a personal level, I would much rather that people voted for me and my party because they liked and agreed with me and my party’s policies the most, rather than because we are the option that they disliked the least.
We have myriad electoral systems, resulting in confusion and disengagement. Ultimately, when we then ask for binary answers to complex questions, we should not be surprised if they come out with results that we were not expecting. The sinews of our parliamentary democracy are being strained, and it is our role as parliamentarians and legislators to ensure that these systems are fit for purpose. Without solving that democratic deficit in the voting systems, which differ in all four nations of our country, we continue to weaken the bonds of the UK. Is that fair? In the Brexit referendum, two of our nations voted against such a step, yet we are set to leave the European Union on the hardest of terms. There has been no attempt by this Government to treat this as a process of four nations. This has failed the devolved Administrations, weakened our democracy and undermined the United Kingdom. And yet, the Government’s own electoral reform proposal in this Queen’s Speech will make it more difficult for people to vote, by introducing voter identification. If the Government think that making it more difficult to vote is the answer, I would respectfully ask, “What is the question and where is the evidence?”—remember, I did mention that I had been a police officer. In an era of social media, when MPs are more accessible than ever, surely our voting system should be too. That means giving EU citizens the guarantees they were promised about the voting rights post Brexit, and following the devolved Administrations by delivering votes at 16.
In this Parliament, I look forward to representing the people of North East Fife and working with Members across the House to deliver the changes to our democracy that will make the United Kingdom fit for purpose as we enter the third decade of the 21st century.

Jonathan Edward Gullis: “Ay Up Duck” is how I should start, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I hope my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent South (Jack Brereton) will be happy with my pronunciation.
May I start by saying what an honour and a privilege it is to make my maiden speech today, and to represent the people of Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke? I could not be prouder to serve and, as I said to the Stoke Sentinel at 5.30 in the morning of election night, I will “work my bum off” to deliver the change that my constituents deserve.
I would like to pay tribute to my predecessor, Ruth Smeeth. She will be remembered as a tireless campaigner for our armed forces, against holiday hunger and fighting antisemitism. The abuse that she has suffered as a result of her Jewish heritage is a disgrace. I know she will continue in her work to combat antisemitism and all other forms of racism, and she can count on me to stand shoulder to shoulder with her on such issues.
As a teacher, a school trade union representative and a Tory, I realise I am not the typical stereotype, and I could not think of a more fitting debate in which to make my maiden speech. Education is by far the most powerful tool we have to improve social mobility. In my own family, I have seen this at first hand. My mother, who joins me in the Gallery today, got into a grammar school off the estate in London. My father, having failed his O-levels, took up work as a caretaker to attend night school, ending up at Durham University with a Masters. The hard work, resilience and determination of my parents has allowed them to achieve more than what many, and indeed they themselves, would have anticipated had they been confined to the lazy stereotypes placed upon them. Teachers serve the young people they educate outside the bounds of academia, often assuming the role of mentor, providing intellectual and emotional support. For most of us there is that one stand-out teacher who changed the way we think and made a difference to our lives. The teacher who inspired me is Dr Simon Peaple. He was the head of history and politics at my school. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tamworth (Christopher Pincher), who cannot be here, will know him well, because he is now the leader of the Labour group on Tamworth Borough Council. His teaching was so effective that, despite him coming to campaign for my predecessor, I was able to make it on to the Green Benches today. But, in all seriousness, his dedication to his students, extensive subject knowledge and passion for the job stuck with me, and I would like to thank him for all that he did.
Getting education right across Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke is crucial. In 2018 the progress 8 scores showed a majority of children underachieving and only 1% of students getting AAB at A-level compared with 12% across the rest of the west midlands. However, signs of improvement are beginning to show: today, over 80% of schools are rated good or outstanding, and 2019 GCSE results showed a 6% increase in the pass rate for English and maths across the city of Stoke-on-Trent. And with the Government’s support via the Stoke-on-Trent opportunity area, more breakfast clubs and a 4.7% increase in per pupil funding, the city is on the up.
I say the city is on the up because for too long it has been perceived negatively. Football pundits talk about whether players can perform on a cold Tuesday night in Stoke-on-Trent and last week Piers Morgan wondered whether the Duchess of Sussex would ever want to face opening a community hall on a wet Wednesday in Stoke. In addition, the town of Kidsgrove has been passed from pillar to post in Boundary Commission changes and is now being nicknamed the forgotten town. Well, I say that Stoke-on-Trent is a city to be proud of, Kidsgrove will no longer be forgotten, and it is time that we started talking about Talke—a bit of cheese.
If Members are looking for somewhere to spend their next bank holiday weekend, they need look no further. After enjoying a cheesy Staffordshire oatcake they can  make their way to the mother town of Burslem, birthplace of Lemmy from Motörhead, 16-time world dart champion Phil “the power” Taylor and Robbie Williams. They can also go for a walk around the award-winning park or pop down to Vale park and see Port Vale FC play, or see local businesses such as Synectics Solutions, Titanic Brewery and Autonet, which together employ thousands of local residents.
Burslem was the heartbeat of this city and hosts its ceramic industry from Royal Stafford to Moorcroft. In neighbouring Middleport we can see Steelite and go on a tour of Middleport Pottery. The place is home to “The Great Pottery Throw Down” on Channel 4 and was used for filming on the TV series “Peaky Blinders”.
Next, we can visit another of the original six towns, Tunstall, where we will soon be able to visit the newly refurbished town hall, go shopping at the indoor market and see another ceramics giant in Churchill China.
We can then make our way to Kidsgrove and Talke. Here we can walk along the beautiful Trent and Mersey canal to see the Harecastle tunnel; at one and a half miles long it was once the longest in the country, responsible for taking the coal to the kilns. We can also see the site of the old sports centre, which, thanks to the efforts of Kidsgrove sports centre community group and the Conservative-led Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council, will be refurbished and reopened next summer so it can retain its place as a key community asset.
It is said that world war two was won in the skies, as alluded to by my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh (Paul Holmes), thanks to a little plane called the Spitfire. In Talke my hon. Friend the Member for Eastleigh can visit the Reginald Mitchell peace garden, named after the Spitfire inventor and yards from where he was born. Reginald Mitchell is heavily celebrated across the Potteries and in 2003 was voted the greatest midlander in the BBC’s online TV and radio vote.
Lastly, we have Chatterley Whitfield colliery. It is one of the most complete former colliery sites in Europe and has been designated a scheduled ancient monument. It was the first colliery in the country to achieve an annual output of 1 million tonnes, which was achieved in 1937 and again in 1939. The colliery ceased production and closed its doors on working miners in March 1977. The hard work undertaken by the Friends of Chatterley Whitfield has seen some buildings brought back to use, sell-out tours on heritage weekends and important documents saved. However, this important piece of heritage is still at risk of being lost. The potbanks would not have fired if it were not for the coal brought from the deep mines at Chatterley Whitfield. The Potteries would not have existed. I made it a central pledge in my campaign to protect and preserve the site with a long-term plan. The loss of such a site would mean that future generations could be denied an invaluable opportunity to learn about their past. I will not stand by and let that happen.
Talking up an area is very important, but it is crucial to acknowledge the challenges we face. We need more school places, better public transport and to bring more high-skilled, high-wage jobs to Stoke-on-Trent, Kidsgrove and Talke. We must invest in the city by opening up free schools to offer more parental choice. We must reverse some of the Beeching cuts by opening up the old mineral  line and ensure the city of Stoke-on-Trent becomes the core of the tech revolution. Silicon Stoke is an ambition to put this city at the centre of future skills and jobs. We are rated as having some of the best 4G download speeds in the country and we are leading the way by rolling out 60 miles of full fibre broadband across the city, thanks to Swedish firm VX Fiber and this Government’s investment of over £9 million. According to council officers, that could generate a £625 million boost to the Stoke-on-Trent economy, meaning more jobs and higher wages.
Stoke-on-Trent, one of the great cities of the industrial revolution, knows what it means to be at the centre of the country’s economy. I wish to see the city reignited at the heart of the coming technological revolution. One of my roles as a Member of Parliament is to represent the people, the place and the history of Stoke-on-Trent North, Kidsgrove and Talke. I will pursue relentlessly the potential and ambition of my constituency, and I will shout at every turn about how amazing the city is and the opportunities it possesses. Make no mistake: we are on the up.

Alex Norris: It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis). That was an excellent maiden speech, joining a series of excellent maiden speeches made across the House. I wish all new Members well in their time in Parliament.
This is my first speech since returning at the general election, so I would like to take this opportunity to thank my neighbours for electing me again and giving me the privilege of being our voice here in Parliament. I stood for election on a set of promises, and I intend to make good on them. Uppermost of them was to fight for our schools and for the best resourcing for our schooling, so it seems apt to start there.
I was pleased to see in the Queen’s Speech talk of more resources for schools, but we have to understand the context in which we have that conversation. Austerity has harmed Nottingham in very many ways, but nowhere more than through cuts to schools. Since 2015, £20 million has been lost from our children—nearly £400 per head. Those are cuts that will not heal. Over the past 10 years, Ministers have come to the Dispatch Box to say, in very much the same triumphal spirit in which the Secretary of State started this debate, that there will be more money for schools. However, the reality has not matched that. Growing costs, whether through the growing number of pupils or the growing complexity by which some of those pupils need educating, have hoovered up that extra money and the reality has been real-terms cuts. We need to keep a laser focus on that. I certainly will, particularly in two regards. The first relates to what the funding does for class sizes.
Ministers on the Treasury Bench argue that more money is going into schools and those on the Opposition Benches say there is less, so we get into that sort of political back and forth. The reality on the ground in my constituency is that in pretty much every primary school, school class sizes have increased. At Bulwell Saint Mary’s, there have been an extra two and a half pupils per class between 2015 and 2018. At Rosslyn Park, where I have been chair of governors for the past decade, it is also two and a half. It is nearly two at Henry Whipple as well. This is the story across my  community. Until that number starts going down, we are going to continue to talk about it. Any new money seems to go to better-off communities. Over the past five years, the average cut in poorer communities has been nearly £400, but for the best-off it has been only a third of that. If the new money goes into schools that are already doing better, it will only widen inequalities.
I do not want to spend my time solely talking about money, because we have to get on to other issues, too. I want to raise something that does not get talked about very much at all. It is one of the unspoken disparities in our education system: the outcome for boys, particularly white British boys in working-class communities. All primary school governors know that rush at key stage 2 to try to get to 65% in combined reading, writing and maths. In challenged communities like mine, that is really difficult. We have worked really hard and achieved that: we are broadly in line with the national average. However, hidden within that is a real disparity.
In my community, 70% of girls are meeting the target but only 59% of boys are making it. Let us look at some of the poorer schools. I will not name them, because this is not about picking out those schools for criticism; it is a broader problem. Nevertheless, in some of our primaries we see the following: 76% of girls meeting the age-related expected standard as against 35% of boys; 79% playing 40%; and 92%—what an outstanding achievement for the girls in one of my primary schools—as against only 56% of the boys. In all, boys have worse outcomes in 26 of the 29 primary schools in my constituency that I can get data for, and in 17 of the 29, the difference is greater than 10%. In general, the poorer and less diverse the ward, the bigger the gap. This is not a Nottingham North or a Nottingham peculiarity and we have to do something about it.
The Minister for Universities, Science, Research and Innovation, who is in his place, was on the Education Committee in 2014 which identified this problem and the root causes—low expectations of these children, poor absence rates and discipline, and curriculums that do not appeal to them. When we read that Education Committee report, it is striking that nothing has changed in that time, so I call on the Government to pick up the cudgels on this critical issue and have better curriculums based on international best practice; specific, targeted resource to augment the pupil premium; a focus on catching up for boys who fall behind at key stage 1; and the deployment of the best teachers in the most challenged schools, incentivised to work in the hard environments. Of course, we also need the full reversal of the per-head cut for each pupil that every school in my community has experienced.

Tom Randall: It is a pleasure to follow my constituency neighbour, the hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris). This is my maiden  speech and I reflect on the fact that many seek election to this House, but most do not succeed. Of those who do, many do not have the opportunity to represent the place where they grew up and the place that they consider home. That I have been successful on both counts is particularly humbling, and in my time in this House, I look forward to representing all the people of Gedling to the best of my ability.
I am the fourth Member of Parliament for Gedling since the seat’s creation in 1983. I do not remember Sir Philip Holland, although he is fondly remembered by some of my older voters. He also represented the predecessor seat of Carlton. He was a vociferous campaigner against the proliferation of quangos and was, among other achievements, a valued member of the Public Accounts Committee.
Sir Philip was succeeded by my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), who held a number of junior ministerial positions in his time as Member for Gedling and is still regarded there as an effective, hard-working MP—something that he found for himself when he very kindly came to help my campaign in December.
My immediate predecessor is Mr Vernon Coaker, a teacher who served Gedling for over two decades, including time as a Minister. Mr Coaker is well regarded locally across the political spectrum. As I have got to know Conservative colleagues here over the last few weeks, they have all spoken warmly of him as a fair opponent and have particularly praised his work on the important issues of human trafficking and modem slavery. I said at my declaration that, in undertaking my responsibilities as a constituency MP, I can ask for no better role model than my predecessor, and I am happy to restate that on the Floor of the House today. Vernon Coaker gave his maiden speech on 10 June 1997. In it, he made a confession: he said that the name Gedling often provokes the question, “Where?” I regret to inform the House that more than 22 and a half years later, I find myself in much the same situation, so allow me to recap.
Gedling is a constituency in Nottinghamshire, lying to the north-east of the city of Nottingham. It comprises two principal towns: Arnold and Carlton. Arnold is a market town that was once home to many factories connected to the hosiery industry, but is now primarily residential. It was the birthplace of Thomas Hawksley, a civil engineer whose work on water supply projects ensured that thousands of people across many towns had access to safe drinking water. It was also the birthplace of Richard Parkes Bonington, a Romantic landscape painter, many of whose works can be found in the Wallace Collection.
Carlton, similarly, was home to textile factories but is now primarily residential, as are the smaller towns of Netherfield, Colwick and Mapperley. The suburban nature of Gedling is broken by the pretty villages of Burton Joyce and Stoke Bardolph, the latter on the River Trent, which have retained their rural charm. At the centre of the constituency lies the equally pretty village of Gedling, which gives its name both to the constituency and the wider borough. Gedling was home to a colliery and the site is now an attractive country park from which, on a clear day, one can reportedly see Lincoln cathedral. The rather unusual name “Gedling” derives from the Saxon chief Gedl, who sailed up the River Trent and settled in the area. I do not know what  Gedl would have made of modem politics, but I like to think that, as a Saxon and presumably fair-haired leader, free of the Norman yoke and leading his people to a new political settlement, he would look favourably upon my work in my first weeks here, voting with colleagues to get the withdrawal Bill through and honour the decision the people of Gedling took in the 2016 referendum—a decision that should be respected. I also look forward to supporting the Government in their commitment to recruit a further 20,000 police officers—I am pleased that recruitment has started—as well as to the promised increased spending for the national health service.
We can only guess at what Gedl would have made of that common feature of modern life: the repetition of slogans. During the course of the election campaign, there were two that I repeated with even more conviction than “Get Brexit Done”. They were that Gedling is a great place to live, work and raise a family, and that Gedling made me who I am. I grew up in Arnold and, like many thousands of schoolchildren, I went to schools I happened to be in the catchment area for. At what was then Redhill Comprehensive School, a good school that now, as Redhill Academy, is an even better one, I learned the transformative power of education. My education opened many doors for me, the son of working-class parents, including the doors to this Chamber. If we are to truly level up, we must ensure educational opportunity for all. I welcome the Government’s commitment to increasing funding for schools and starting salaries for teachers. As its future was at stake in this election, I welcome the return of a Government who will ensure that Ofsted will continue as the body to maintain standards in education.
I look forward to supporting colleagues on these and all the other issues contained in the Queen’s Speech and I trust that, whether the next maiden speech by the Member for Gedling is made in four and a half years or 45 years’ time, right hon. and hon. Members will know exactly where Gedling is.

Layla Moran: I congratulate the hon. Member for Gedling (Tom Randall) on his tour de force. I just googled Gedling and it looks delightful. I will certainly consider it as a destination for the next bank holiday. I am sure everyone will agree that it has been instructive sitting in the House this afternoon.
I made my maiden speech in the education part of the Queen’s Speech debate. As I said then and as I say now, as a former teacher, it is this issue and my driving passion to ensure that every single child, no matter their background, reaches their full potential that has brought me here. Of course then, whenever I see a Queen’s Speech, I scour it for the education bit. This time, I had to keep looking, because it was one sentence—one sentence in Her Majesty’s Gracious Speech on education—and it concerned an announcement that had already been made on school funding.
We do need more money. We have been debating this in the House cross-party—I give everyone their due—for a long time, but 83% of schools will have less money per  pupil than in 2015, so we welcome any new money, but as has been said, we must keep an eye on what else schools are being asked to pay for—not least the very welcome rise in the basic rate for teachers’ salaries.
There is something else I find depressing about the Queen’s Speech and the speeches from Ministers. I believe that we now need a national debate on education. We are spending more money on it and I think the public deserve to know if we are getting the best value for money. As far as I can see, the Government’s policies are ideological, not evidence based. They need to be driven by what actually works. This morning we heard about behavioural standards and a rigorous curriculum, but those were buzzwords when I first started teaching, and even before that. We know so much more now about what works.
In his opening remarks, the Minister mentioned PISA. My Master’s was in comparative education at the Institute of Education, and I learned a few things about PISA then. It has its place and I would not like us to withdraw from it but, that said, we are in the middle of the table. There is a lot of rhetoric and a lot of warm words about world-class schools, but if the Government care so much about PISA, they should look at the evidence.
We are in the middle of the table, and those at the top do not care that much about PISA. What they are doing is innovating and breaking down the walls between subjects. It is clear from the latest report, published just a few weeks ago, that they are putting social and emotional wellbeing right up there with high-quality content: not as an adjunct, not as an afterthought, but as a driver. Children who are emotionally secure learn better. That is an obvious thing to say, but I do not think that we are prioritising it in this country. So far the approach has been haphazard, and I am sorry to say that we are seeing the same approach in other matters to do with education. Erasmus has been mentioned today. I am sad that the House chose not to support the amendment that I tabled last week.

Layla Moran: I could not agree more. Our teachers are heroes. Day in, day out, teachers in secondary and primary schools, especially primaries—I still do not understand how they do it; those people have the patience of angels—are doing an incredible job, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for giving me the chance to say so. That said, however, they are doing it under enormous strain.
The thin end of the wedge is exclusions, which currently represent a huge crisis in our education system. Vulnerable children are falling through the cracks of a system that is under extraordinary strain. As I said earlier, I went into politics because I was appalled that there was such a strong link in this country between where people go and where they come from. This House is becoming more representative when it comes to women and a bit more representative when it comes to black and minority ethnic people, but how representative is it when it comes to socioeconomic backgrounds? That, I think, is the one thing that we do not talk enough about in this place.
In our schools, it is the kids who come from poorer backgrounds who are consistently falling through the cracks. The rate of permanent exclusions increased by 52% between 2013-14 and 2017-18, returning to levels not seen since the end of the last Labour Government. In secondary schools, for every 10 pupils on the school roll, one temporary exclusion is issued. Pupils with moderate special educational needs are five times more likely to be excluded than those without them, and more than 50% of children with SEND who are excluded have social, emotional or mental health difficulties. Black Caribbean and Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities are the most likely to be excluded, and pupils on free school meals are four times as likely to be excluded as their classmates from more affluent backgrounds.
I do not believe for one second that those children are in any way less able than anyone else. There is something wider going on here. I think that we need to look at our own system. There are perverse incentives in it, to do with accountability and the inspection regime, that encourage teachers to “off-roll” difficult students before GCSEs. Head teachers are desperate, because of the punitive way in which Ofsted uses results, to take some of them out of the system so that their ratings do not fall. We know that that is happening: Ofsted itself has alerted us to it.
Ultimately, who sets the regime under which Ofsted inspects? Who gives Ofsted its money? It is the Department for Education, and the direction for that is driven by this place. Schools are judged on academic progress. Incidentally, it is the support staff who are the first to go in these leaner financial times. People talk about behaviour, and we heard the Minister talk earlier about the fact that the Government were putting some more money into local government support—

Kevin Hollinrake: Congratulations on your election, Madam Deputy Speaker—although there was no need for an election. It is always a pleasure to speak when a fellow Yorkshire MP is in the Chair.
I have been casting my mind back to when I made my own maiden speech. I found it a daunting experience, and I am pretty daunted now by having to follow some of these amazing maiden speeches. They have been truly exceptional, and I congratulate all those who have made their speeches today, and the rest who will make theirs over the next few days. I give them my very best wishes for their future in this place.
I would like to speak principally about levelling up. That is something that clearly encompasses the two main themes of today’s debate: education and local government. “Levelling up” is an excellent phrase that has come from somebody who is very good at articulating phrases to achieve their political ends. It is something that I and many other colleagues on both sides of the Chamber have been banging on about for years. It is based not on grievance but on sound economics. It is about opportunities for people in the north, but it is also a huge opportunity for UK plc.
The solution to levelling up is pretty simple. It is about more public sector investment and more private sector investment. However, “simple” and “easy” are two separate things. The Government are now committed to a huge, £100 billion investment in infrastructure. It has not been easy, over the past four and a half years, to persuade the Treasury to do that, but it is committed to doing it now. However, the trickier problem is ensuring that we get private sector investment, too. Public sector investment on its own simply will not do.
Investment in the north—and not just the north but the regions of England and the other nations of the United Kingdom—is not about political opportunism. It is about sound economics and has the support of some of the economists that I have a great deal of faith in. Jim O’Neill, for example, is an ardent remainer, but he said earlier this year that being in or out of the EU was not the most important thing, and that our productivity performance and our geographic inequality were the most important issues we needed to deal with. Andy Haldane, the chief economist at the Bank of England, noted in a recent speech that the regional income gap between the richest and poorest regions in terms of average incomes was now larger than it had been at any time in the early 20th century. That gap narrowed in the first 80 years of the last century.
David Smith, the economist who writes in The Sunday Times, has welcomed the £100 billion investment in infrastructure and talked about the change we need to make to the Green Book to ensure that northern and midlands projects, and projects in the south-west and other parts of the country, are stacked up better. He identified the fact that the GVA—the productivity—in London is about £50,000 per person per annum, whereas in Yorkshire and Humberside and the north-east, it is just over £20,000 per annum. There is a clear relationship between average incomes and productivity, so it totally follows that if we get the productivity right, average incomes will grow. However, as David Smith said in his column this weekend, public investment works only when it is in harmony with private investment. Another very good economist, Mark Littlewood of the Institute of Economic Affairs, has been quite scathing about infrastructure investment. He has pointed out, for example, that Doncaster has very good road and rail communication links but still has a long way to go to match the productivity and prosperity levels of London and the south-east. So infrastructure alone will not solve this tough, long-term and expensive problem.
If we are to repay the trust of all the people right across the north who voted Conservative, including in places such as Darlington, where I spent a lot of time campaigning over the election period, we must ensure that real incomes grow and that we get better jobs, and all that can be derived from higher productivity. We must see higher public sector investment and higher private sector investment.
The public sector is relatively straightforward. We have been campaigning for some time to get £120 billion spent right across the north with a 30-year plan. That is what will hopefully be announced at the Budget, but we need a raft of other policy ideas to encourage private sector investment in some of the left behind towns. Free ports are a great policy, but Darlington and many other constituencies will not benefit from them. We perhaps need enterprise zones in town centres rather than business  parks, and incentives to retrain the long-term unemployed. We need an SME-first policy. Preston City Council, for example, has radically shifted the amount of money it spends with SMEs, and we know that SMEs invest a much larger proportion of their income back into the local community. We need more public sector jobs. We need to consider our high streets and business rates. Building homes at a discount is an excellent Government policy.
Key to all that is devolution. We must ensure that we hand powers back to the people who know the towns best and will represent them most effectively. We need to do all these things to get private sector investment as well as public sector investment.

John Stevenson: I spoke about local government after the last Queen’s Speech. The political environment was then very different, and my speech was made more in hope than expectation. How life can change. The environment is now completely different, with a new Government with a strong majority and a once-in-a-generation opportunity to make a real and significant difference—an opportunity to be reforming and radical.
Local government has often been underrated and underappreciated, yet it can be and often is very effective. Following the great recession of 2008-09, local government adjusted remarkably well in what were very difficult  financial circumstances. Indeed, the importance of local government and its ability to deal with things should not be underestimated.
If the Government’s agenda is to become a reality, local government will be one of the vehicles that will help to deliver their policies. However, it is becoming increasingly apparent that local government and its powers and structures are in serious need of an overhaul if it is to deliver the policies and services we want to see.
The new political environment therefore gives the Government a unique opportunity to change the present arrangements, and doing so could achieve two fundamental things. First, it could improve the balance of power between central Government and local government. As has often been said, we are a heavily centralised country and we need to rebalance the relationship between central Government and local government. Secondly, we have an opportunity to rebalance the national economy, with greater economic growth and development in the regions. Those are two things that successive Governments, of both political colours, have failed to do over the past 20 or 30 years.
I encourage Ministers to be imaginative, ambitious and bold. If they are, future generations will reap significant benefits and the country as a whole will be much more balanced and, I suspect, much better off. I therefore welcome the proposed White Paper, but I encourage Ministers to start the reforming process now, rather than later.
The key elements of reform are threefold: structural change; devolution; and investment. For some time, I have been convinced that the structure of local government needs changing. First, we must move towards having more unitary councils. Unitaries are generally larger, so they have greater heft when it comes to policy initiatives. They are generally more efficient, transparent and better understood by voters. They can also lead to substantial savings, which then benefit the services they provide. Secondly, I am a firm believer that the introduction of mayors for both cities and more rural areas would be beneficial. We have a lot of maiden speeches today and we have heard older Members referring to their own maiden speeches. Interestingly, when I made mine, 10 years ago, I said that I thought the innovative idea of elected mayors would be beneficial to this country and, in particular, to devolution. I believe they give clear, visible leadership—in effect, there is nowhere to hide—and they have the potential to attract individuals with vision and ambition. The mayors we already have are evidence that that is correct. Combined with reformed structures, proper devolution needs to take place, with real power and proper responsibility, including tax-raising powers, given to mayors and authorities. These reforms will help to lay the foundations of a renaissance in the regions.
The third element is equally important: investment—hard cash. Of course cities and regions must help themselves, but help from central Government will be crucial if it is to have a real impact. Funding is needed for infrastructure, such as rail, roads, digital, and education and skills, but policy changes also matter. The creation of free ports—here I wish to make a pitch for Carlisle Lake District airport/freeport—would send a powerful message of the Government’s intentions. In addition, local government must ensure that it works to attract private investment,  hence it is important to have attractive public realms, good schools, quality housing—in effect, an appealing social environment.
Economic success will drive the regions. I could be parochial and suggest that Carlisle and Cumbria is almost a case study, with some recent real achievements and positives: the garden village; road investment; the Borderlands; and town centre funding. Yet to truly unleash its potential it requires Government help: structural reform, whereby seven councils may come down to two; powers to invest; and the opportunity to have a mayor for Cumbria, to give it visibility and leadership. I look forward to working with Ministers to achieve that. To conclude, if we are truly to bring in a new age and unleash the potential of our regions, I encourage Ministers to be ambitious, brave and bold. Above all, let’s get on with it.

Robert Alexander Courts: It is an honour to speak towards the end of the debate. We have heard many incredible speeches today from those who are making their first remarks in the House. I and others are slightly in awe of following people who have spoken with such quality. I cannot mention them all, but I pay tribute to my southern neighbour, my hon. Friend the Member for Wantage (David Johnston), who spoke for  the first time today. He spoke incredibly fluently and persuasively, without notes, which is extraordinary for a maiden speech.
My hon. Friend spoke persuasively about social mobility, which matters hugely to all of us. I have done a little family research. About 100 years ago, as far as we can tell, the Courtses were semi-skilled or unskilled workers in the midlands and the fens. For those ancestors the prospect that I would become a barrister, or perhaps go through the doors of this Chamber and stand in Parliament, must have been utterly fanciful. It cannot have dawned on them that that would happen. My paternal grandfather was a cobbler and my father got to university through going to the local grammar school. In due course, I went to the Bar and was then was honoured to be elected to come here.
What has made the difference? It is unlikely that the family has become more industrious or more intelligent as time has gone on. I suggest that the answer is straightforward: it is education. The advent of mass education available to all has meant that people’s talents have been able to be unlocked. That is why social mobility and education matter so much to all of us. My wife is a governor at the local primary school and my mother was a teaching assistant for many years, so I am acutely aware of it.
We have a strong base upon which to build. Since 2010 the Government’s record has been extraordinary—we only have to look at the increase in standards to see that. Nationally, 1.9 million children are in good or outstanding schools—that is 86% of children in good or outstanding schools. In my constituency area of West Oxfordshire, the figure is around 95%, which is an incredible record, an incredible improvement and a base on which we can build. That improvement is the result of academic rigour and some of the policies put in place, and it is also the result of the dedication and talents of teachers, families and, of course, the students who have gone through the system in that time.
I am acutely aware that cost pressures since 2010 have been significant for teachers. I have a good working relationship with all the teachers in my constituency. I have visited a great many of them and I have tried to understand the issues in real detail. School funding is not the most straightforward aspect of policy for anybody to get to grips with for the first time, but it seems that teachers are now expected to do many more things that they were not expected to do in the past, or it may be that aspects of budgets were paid for by the local authority but are not now paid for. There are of course good reasons for that, and we all know them. Even now, I think we are paying approximately two thirds of the entire education budget towards servicing debt interest—it is more than the defence budget. That is why we have had to take the difficult decisions that we have taken over the past decade, but in this Queen’s Speech we can see the fruits of those difficult decisions and of the British people’s industriousness as we can start to reinvest. I am really pleased that with this Queen’s Speech the Government have listened to people like me—constituency MPs who have come back and reported on what they hear from the education frontline.
I am delighted to welcome the levelling up funding. It is welcome that all schools are receiving significant—in some cases very significant—increases in funding to level up throughout the country, particularly in rural  areas such as Oxfordshire, which has historically been underfunded. What is also welcome is that that funding is to be invested in some of the educational areas that I know, from talking to teachers, have caused difficulty. For example, special educational needs provision is demanding for teachers in time and resources, and it is very welcome that much more money is being put into that. Similarly, the various initiatives to help those from disadvantaged backgrounds to make the most of their time to ensure that they also profit from the education system are very welcome as well.
In the short time remaining, I wish to make one point about the type of education that we offer. Probably the biggest thing that employers in my constituency will say to me when I speak to them is that they could expand and grow their business, but they just cannot find enough people to hire with the right skills. In an area such as West Oxfordshire, which is very high-tech, with aviation, Formula 1 and all sorts of science spin-offs coming out of the University of Oxford, there is a real need for people who have not only the academic ability but often the technical ability as well. The focus on T-levels and other vocational skills is very welcome.
The last point I wish to make is about practical work experience. I am grateful that the Royal Air Force has invested in a STEM programme at Carterton Community College. Meaningful work experience with companies in the real world would be of great value to employers and schools alike.
Broadly, I welcome everything in the Queen’s Speech, particularly the focus on education, which I hope will open doors for others, as those doors have been opened for me.

Bambos Charalambous: This ambitious Queen’s Speech lists a whole series of draft Bills on wide-ranging areas, but it raises more questions than answers, and there are glaring omissions in respect of local government and education.
The section on education makes much of increased funding for schools. Increased funding is welcome, but after years of austerity not enough is being offered to reverse the damage that has been done. There are now fewer enrichment classes on offer, fewer teaching assistants, fewer student-services staff and less funding for building maintenance. Creative arts supplies have also been affected, although I was pleased to hear the Minister’s arts premium proposal, which I look forward to finding out more about.
The truth is that under the Government’s funding plans 83% of schools will be worse off in real terms in April 2020 than they were in 2015. The Government have failed to resolve the even greater crisis in further education and sixth-form colleges, which have suffered real-terms cuts that have run longer and deeper. They have failed even to mention the nursery school sector.

Bambos Charalambous: My hon. Friend makes an excellent point. The Government should come clean—this is a smoke-and-mirrors trick—and put back the money that they took out, in real terms.
The Government must face up to the fact that not enough teachers want to stay in the job. Headteachers across my constituency of Enfield, Southgate regularly tell me how difficult it is to recruit and retain staff. The additional workload and stress generated as a result of being judged on SATs results and Ofsted inspections is one the main reasons given by teachers for leaving the profession, which is why Ofsted and SATs should be replaced by a new system of accountability that gives a true picture of schools and students.
The impact of child poverty on a child’s education is indisputable. Children cannot learn when they are hungry, surviving in cold or damp homes, or enduring severe overcrowding. When I see parents with their children coming to my surgery showing me pictures of serious damp and rodent-infested, overcrowded accommodation I know that unless action is taken their children’s future is at risk. An estimated 4.1 million children are still trapped in poverty, and that figure is expected to rise to 5.2 million by 2022. The Government can make as many promises as they like about school funding but unless they tackle child poverty head-on the education of children will suffer.
If Members want an example of how the Government behave towards schools they need look no further than the announcement last year that teachers would receive a 2.75% pay rise. On the last day before the summer recess, they sneaked out a statement proclaiming that they would fund only 0.75%, leaving schools with strained budgets to find the rest. That is what we have come to expect from Conservative Governments. Local government has been treated exactly the same. I remember the Tory-led coalition Government transferring a raft of responsibilities to local authorities, including the council tax support scheme. However, they gave local authorities only 90% of the funding needed to administer the scheme. Is that what we should expect from the Government under the new funding proposals?
The Queen’s Speech states that the
“Government will invest in the country’s public services and infrastructure”,
but there is little mention of funding for local government. Late last year, the Government released a technical consultation on the review of local authorities’ relative needs and resources—the next stage in the so-called fair funding review—which could be a precursor to the biggest single shift in money from the most deprived areas to the most affluent. That is because the fair funding review proposes to remove the consideration of deprivation from the core foundation formula, despite the Government’s own research, which shows that deprivation is the second-best predictor of the cost of basic services.
In my own area, Enfield Council is a good Labour council that continually strives to protect frontline services. It covers areas of severe deprivation, including some in my constituency of Enfield, Southgate. Central Government have cut funding to Enfield Council by 60% in real  terms since 2010. When the Government make those extreme cuts to Enfield Council’s budget, they are making a clear choice—they do not see the needs of local people as a priority.
The Government have tried to mask the cuts by saying that councils can raise money through increases in council tax and the social care precept. First, the amounts that can be raised in that way are nowhere near enough to compensate for the cuts since 2010. Secondly, they hardwire regional inequality into the system, because it is the richer areas that are able to raise more through increases in council tax. Despite being one of the areas where the riots took place in 2011, Enfield Council has been forced by central Government cuts to slash its spending on youth services by 88%, from £3.5million in 2011-12 to £411,000 in 2018-19. In its last budget, Enfield Council had to make further cuts of £18 million across all services. If Enfield had not had 60% of its budget cut since 2010, the council would be funding those services, our local crime figures would probably be lower and fewer young people in my constituency would feel that their futures had been thrown away before they had even begun. The Government must realise that by acting in haste to cut local government funding they will repent at leisure, because they will have to find more money for the burgeoning prison population and its after-effects.
In short, the Government can promise all they like, but unless they are prepared to fund local government properly again and to undo the damage that has been done since 2010, the promises in the Queen’s Speech ring hollow.

Paul Blomfield: Let me echo the comments that have been made by colleagues on both sides of the House about the many excellent maiden speeches that we have heard today. Some of those new Members are still here, and I think we can look forward to hearing more from a number of robust representatives of their constituencies over the years ahead.
One of the things I do each year in the conference recess in October is organise a community consultation, to give constituents the chance to set out their concerns to me and to shape my priorities in Parliament. There were something like 40 different events involving more than 1,000 people last year, but one of the things that I am always keen to prioritise is meeting young people who are not yet old enough to have a vote, but whose lives will be shaped by many of the decisions we make, so I met year 12 and 13 students at Sheffield Park Academy and King Edward VII School, students at the University Technical College Sheffield, and students in further education at Sheffield College. I have to say that these discussions are some of the liveliest and best informed meetings that I hold each year, and they are a great advert for why our democracy would be strengthened by extending voting rights to 16 and 17-year-olds.
It seemed to me that today’s debate was a good opportunity to raise some of the students’ concerns, as people who are at the very heart of our education system. Those concerns were not simply about education, although some were and I will come to those points. I represent a very diverse, socially-mixed area, but right  across the constituency the students I spoke to were overwhelmingly opposed to our departure from the European Union. I think they were widely representative of young people across the country, so I urge Government Members to recognise the views of that generation as we seek to navigate the difficult months ahead.
The top concern of these young people was the climate emergency. Some had been involved in the school students’ actions, although the majority had not and their concern was just as deep. They are looking for us to take the sort of radical measures needed to tackle the crisis that are absent from this Queen’s Speech, which repeats the 2050 net zero target; that commitment fails them. The Queen’s Speech also wrongly describes the Government’s policies on climate change as “world-leading”, which they simply are not.
I think that the students I talked with would be concerned about the Government’s reaction to the Flybe problems that we were talking about earlier. A strategic intervention to support a company is clearly something that the Government should be looking at, but I think that a general response to encourage and provide further financial subsidy to the most carbon-emitting mode of transport would worry those students. Aviation already enjoys the advantages of tax-free fuel, and offering a further general concession across the industry to deal with the problems of one company would be a mistake.

Lisa Cameron: My hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. A tax office in the centre of East Kilbride is also due to be closed, although it has been a pivotal place for tax collection in Scotland. This whole agenda goes against the Government’s towns initiative. Moving jobs from towns to cities is counter-productive, and counteracts what the Prime Minister set out in his agenda.

Stuart McDonald: I agree with my hon. Friend. As I have said before and will say again, this is detrimental not only to the workforce and the town of Cumbernauld, but to the work that we require these people to do in collecting the tax that we need to fund our public services.
It is also fair to say that “Building our future” has been the subject of huge controversy since its launch. The National Audit Office and the Public Accounts Committee, among others, have made very critical comments. In Parliament, my party has devoted Opposition day time to opposing tax office closures. There have been Back Bench business debates, one of which I was able to secure and one that was secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens), who chairs the PCS parliamentary group. Numerous other Members on both sides of the House have tabled questions or secured Adjournment debates on specific site closures.
I make absolutely no apology for bringing this issue to the House once again, because the “Building our future” programme was flawed from the start. It remains flawed and, given the seismic changes that have happened between its initial design and now, there are strong reasons to pause, to look at what has happened so far and to consider whether it is really still worth pursuing these plans. Serious issues have been thrown up even where regional hubs have already opened. For example, in Norwich, despite emphasis being placed on proximity to universities for recruitment purposes, recruitment has apparently proved incredibly difficult. Not only are many existing staff choosing not to make the switch to the new hub, but the hoped-for recruitment of new graduates has not materialised, quite simply because they have better options in the private sector. For all these reasons, the Scottish National party manifesto again made the case for, and committed to, reconsidering these closure proposals.
My first call on the Government is simply for them to take responsibility for what is going on. That in itself is long overdue. In contrast to my colleagues, the Government have been rather less keen on bringing this issue to the House for scrutiny and debate. Even when the original list of sites to be closed was decided, no announcement was made to the House. That basically sums up how Ministers appear to see their role. Ministers hide behind HMRC’s status. Too often in these debates and question sessions, the issue is simply palmed off as one for HMRC to get on with. I recognise that Ministers cannot interfere in the day-to-day operation of tax collection, but that is not what this is about. These strategic decisions will have an impact for decades to come.
I recently joined Jamie Hepburn MSP, PCS union reps and the leader of North Lanarkshire Council, Councillor Jim Logue, in writing to the Financial Secretary to the Treasury and the chief executive of HMRC to make the case for retaining the site in Cumbernauld. We   ask them to come to Cumbernauld and to meet us and the staff. We got a typically bland response from HMRC, but at least it was a response, because all we got from the Treasury was nothing at all. That sums up the total lack of interest that the Treasury has taken in the whole issue of reform of HMRC’s estate and workforce.
Let us remember that these are not trifling changes. We are talking about turning 190 offices into 13. Along the way, thousands of jobs are being cut, and huge sums of money are being thrown at new buildings, refurbishments, relocation costs and all sorts of other expenses. Morale and job satisfaction among the HMRC workforce remains among the lowest in the civil service. Both the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office have raised serious concerns with the programme, so it is no longer sufficient for Ministers to wash her hands of the issue and just leave HMRC to carry on regardless.